Ameliorated
by Reavus
Summary: Sequel to Disregarded. Beast Boy and Jinx fully intend to ameliorate their lives in more ways than one. Follow the chromatically differed duo in this continuation of their undeniably epic adventure of grand proportions where they befriend unlikely individuals and reconcile with estranged friends.
1. Arrival

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

_Directly after the events of Departed..._

Many high-rises filled the fabled landscape that is known as Midway City. Hundreds of stars could be seen dotting the clear night sky, it was almost surreal. The clarity of the sky itself could most likely be attributed to the fact that they were further up north, right next to the Canadian border. Jinx couldn't stop herself from shivering even as she clutched onto her boyfriend as they rode through the serene city streets on the back of his obsidian colored motorcycle. _'Damn Canadian weather, I hope the Doom Patrol have central heating...'_ It seemed that the young feline eyed heroine also attributed the cold weather to their northerly location.

There was a minimal amount of greenery as evidenced every few blocks or so when another park or monument came into view. Jinx noted from the well kept appearance of every part of the city that it was clearly a very industrious place filled with prideful citizens. Streetlights flooded every sidewalk which allowed her to better examine the city's residents and as far as she could tell, there were hardly any shady figures roaming around at all despite the fact it was nearing midnight.

_'They must do a good job at clearing up the trash around here.' _She inwardly remarked at the sight of seeing the streets clean of both crooks and trash alike. She scoffed at the prospect of telling them apart sometimes since they both fulfill the same roll in society - they cripple it.

Traffic died down to nothing as Beast Boy turned onto another road. Even though it was unnerving how traffic had died so suddenly just by taking one turn off, she could sense that they were nearing their final destination. He pulled his trustworthy motorcycle into a private parking space on the side of the road before switching it off and looking back to make sure that his partner had dismounted.

Jinx only voiced her realization when he had put the bike on its centerstand and removed his helmet. "Why is this street so empty when traffic is booming at both ends of it?"

Beast Boy grinned slightly as he answered her. "The Doom Patrol is almost as well known as the Justice League and we're just one team. Do you know why people across the world know about us, I mean, the others?" No one ever remembered that one green kid on the Doom Patrol.

"You guys saved the world multiple times?" You'd sort of figure that'd be the case.

The green teen couldn't decide whether or not to feel proud or ashamed. "Heh, nope. The Doom Patrol is not only respected but it's also feared by everyone 'cus of Mento's way of running things. People try to avoid this road if they can."

"Running things? Mento sure does seem like a 'ruthless calculus' kind of guy." She commented.

He abruptly leaned in to steal a much needed kiss from Jinx before pulling away and confirming what she'd said. "Yeah. 'Stop The Brain at all costs!' And he reaaally means it. Property damage? He runs Dayton Industries, he can easily afford to fix it. Everything is replaceable to him."

One brief kiss wasn't enough for her so she pulled him into another. And another... And another. They were now making out on the sidewalk despite the fact that they were both extremely tired. They just weren't tired of each other.

A bone chilling wind swept through the air briefly, sending shivers down Jinx's spine and causing her to pull away as she hugged Beast Boy for warmth. She found it odd that he was always warm no matter what but she definitely wasn't complaining. "I'm more of a house cat than a wild one."

Chuckling at her little joke, he released his hold on her and watched as she once again resumed her place at his side and gripped onto his right arm. "Well then, right this way."

It was a very short 20 second walk to a rather inconspicuous 2 story, red roofed house that confused Jinx. At least, it would've been inconspicuous if it were in the suburbs where other houses belong and not next to dozens of high-rise buildings ranging from 10 to 40 floors in height, not to mention the fact that it looked similar to a church. "This can't be the Doom Patrol headquarters." She stated, not yet relenting her grip on her emerald eyed lover.

Not many people were openly told what he was about to tell her. "You're right. This is the entrance to it." Besides, it was kind of obvious that the Doom Patrol didn't operate in a small two story building.

"Entrance?"

"Yeah, I'll show you!" He lead her up the steps to the oaken front door where he proceeded to ring the doorbell for 3 seconds before releasing it and then quickly double tapping it afterwards. A hidden panel right next to the doorbell opened up and a small number pad was pushed forward. He proficiently entered in a long string of digits before the device beeped and retreated back from whence it came and the hidden panel concealed itself once more. The door suddenly (and quite auspiciously) clicked as it swung open which prompted Beast Boy to lead her into the building.

Jinx immediately noticed that he'd led her into a fairly well sized hallway that lead straight ahead. The walls of said hallway were well lit and lined with cheap red wallpaper that was covered with intricate golden swirls. They passed by a few doors that apparently served no purpose before reaching a set of metallic doors at the end. It looked suspiciously similar to an elevator, it even had a white button on the side labelled with black text. It read "CALL". Beast Boy pushed it. A few seconds later the metallic doors slid open to reveal... The inside of an elevator.

* * *

After pushing the down button on the elevator, the doors slid shut and crummy elevator music began playing softly in the background. Jinx couldn't resist chortling at how cliché everything had been so far. "Music? Really?"

Beast Boy smiled at her amusement. "I know, I know. I'm pretty sure that it was my mom's design choice." With that said, he turned to face two devices on the wall of the elevator.

"What are those for?" Jinx inquired.

"Fingerprint and eye-thingy scanners. I need to run through them both before those doors open again."

Beast Boy quickly performed the tests after he took off his holo ring just to be safe. Throughout the brief process, the young man struggled to remember the correct word. _'Retinal! That's it! Retinal scanner!'_

Jinx actually felt relieved to see his green skin once more. _'A blonde and white Logan looks nice but a green one is MY Logan.'_ She figured that she ought to take off her ring as well, which she promptly did.

The doors slid open for the final time and a computerized voice of a feminine nature rung out loudly. "Welcome Beast Boy, Doom Patrol member zero-zero-five."

Smiling as he recalled the automatic voice, he spoke to Jinx as he lead them out of the elevator. "There was a little joke about calling whoever becomes the 7th member: 'Bond'."

She was currently more perturbed that the automatic announcement may have been too loud. "Didn't that loudspeaker wake everyone up?"

"Private rooms are sound proof, apparently. I've always been able to hear it so I'm not too sure about that. We didn't always run with Midway City's timezone anyway and sometimes the Doom Patrol isn't even here so it might not have mattered, but they're here so it's all cool."

Trusting that he knew his old family was nearby, she responded in a tone filled with curiosity. "Sometimes they aren't here? Why?"

"We spent a lot of the time in the field tracking down our enemies, even going as far as spending weeks in other countries sometimes." He decided to change the topic. "Remember what we discussed about Mento?"

She nodded before taking a deep breath, afterwards she began to quietly chant, causing her eyes to glow a brilliant pink throughout the brief process. "Mens secura."

Having someone forcibly invade your mind to see your innermost thoughts wasn't a pleasant experience - Beast Boy could attest to that. The spell was merely a precautionary measure to help prevent that in case Mento didn't see eye to eye with Jinx's presence in the Doom Patrol HQ.

"How long will the spell last?" He asked.

Shrugging as much as possible with her arms locked around his arms, she answered. "Like I said, I'm not a strong magic user so maybe a couple of days. I don't really know."

The duo exited from the stairwell that lead them down one level to the living quarters and they had just finished closing the metal door that lead to the level itself when Beast Boy was near viciously tackled out of Jinx's grasp. "Garfield!"

* * *

"I came running as soon as I heard you enter! You never called, wrote or anything. Ever! I've been worried sick!" Elasti-Girl gave her adoptive son a detailed once over before being satisfied that he was in good health.

He reached up to rub the back of his neck. "Sorry mom... I missed you too. Please don't call me Garfield, you know I hate it. Have you guys been alright without me?"

"We've been managing. Steve is being his usual self. Larry has missed you almost as much as I have and I'm sure that Cliff does as well. Things really aren't the same without you. Enough about us, what about you? Why are you here?"

"Well... I sort of left the Titans." He truthfully answered.

Elasti-Girl looked saddened "Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that. I know they meant a lot to you. I'm sure that Steve will ask you about it later but you're always welcome here no matter what."

Jinx had already decided then and there that she liked Elasti-Girl. In many ways she was very comparable to Starfire, albeit different in appearance and in understanding of the English language. Elasti-Girl looked to be a kindhearted person, her facial expression was soft just like her voice. Her brunette hair was neatly held back by a black hairband; everything about her was welcoming. For now, Jinx happily blanked out their conversation as she further evaluated her potential mother-in-law.

The conversation, however, quickly directed itself towards Jinx. "Beast Boy, who's this young lady?" A hint of hopefulness could be detected in her inflection.

Fortunately, the pink haired girl didn't miss a beat as she reached her hand out and introduced herself. "I'm Jinx. It's nice to meet you, Elasti-Girl."

Elasti-Girl warily reached her hand out to formally welcome the young girl into her home with a firm handshake. It's not everyday that Garfield brought a girl home. "It's nice to meet you too, Jinx. How does a pretty young lady such as yourself you know of my son?"

It was good to know that Elasti-Girl didn't find anything wrong with Jinx's appearance. The couple, however, failed to notice that she'd avoided bringing up the brand on Jinx's neck which was probably out of common courtesy. 'Straight_ to the point, isn't she?'_ Jinx figured. "I'm his."

Beast Boy smiled as he forced himself to feel pride in a successful attempt to ward off any potential blushes that might stain his facial features. His adoptive mother, however, arched her brow at the confusing statement. "His?" She sought clarity.

Jinx gave a nervous smile to hide her embarrassment. In truth, she hadn't intended to say anything else but she could see that the situation demanded a more appropriate answer. "Uh... His girlfriend."

The smile that slowly crawled onto Elasti-Girl's face was priceless. "Then please, call me Rita."

Jinx returned the smile, she was happy to have the approval of his mother. "Okay, Rita."

It seems that Elasti-Girl really didn't want to waste any time. "How old are you?"

"I'm 16." With great difficulty, she resisted the urge to yawn out of exhaustion.

"How long have you and my son been together?"

Beast Boy wholly recognized that the questions were being directed at Jinx and not himself. "Exactly one week." His lover answered.

Elasti-Girl nodded with interest. "Did you two do anything to celebrate? One week must be a big deal for you two."

The shape shifter quickly covered for them. "Ahh... Not really. Y'know? We just sorta... Rode here. Nothin' fancy." Neither of them thought it was necessary to mention their amorous encounter earlier in the day.

* * *

Elasti-Girl wasn't fooled by his little stunt. A mother's intuition was never wrong, or so they say. After deducing that they must've been tired, she saw a golden opportunity to confirm her assumption so she lead them to Beast Boy's old room. "We can talk it all over in the morning after breakfast when you're both more prepared. I want to know all about you, Jinx. Beast Boy, you can stay in your old room. I'll take Jinx to a guest room." She flashed them a smile before reaching her hand out for Jinx to grab.

Jinx looked hesitant. She didn't relish the idea of ever sleeping without Beast Boy. "I'm sorry, Elas- I mean, Rita, but we uh... We sleep together."

For the most part, Rita didn't look upset. It seems her intuition was right after all. "I see... His room only has a twin bed, if you want, I can-"

"No, no. It's fine, thank you." Jinx reassured her, partly because she didn't want to burden her host but mostly because she didn't want to dwell on the topic of their relationship for too long.

It was clear that she wasn't entirely convinced. "I trust that sleeping is all you two will be doing?" She gave both of the teenagers a meaningful look.

"Mom!" Beast Boy exclaimed. Jinx looked downcast as she attempted to avoid eye contact with the mother figure in front of her. He merely facepalmed with his free hand since his partner was busy occupying the other.

Deciding that she'd embarrassed them enough, she continued with a warm smile. "In all seriousness, Jinx, would you mind if I talked to Beast Boy in private for a minute?"

The unlucky heroine endeavored to remain as polite as possible. "Of course not, I'll just check the room out while I wait." She released Beast Boy's arm before moving in front of him and leaning in for a short but sweet kiss. "I love you, Logan." She whispered to him after pulling away.

_'Who wouldn't? It's the ears, I know it. Chicks dig the ears.'_ He thought. "I love you too. I'll be there in a minute."

She had a skip in her step as she damn near waltzed into Beast Boy's old room.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I've been making good on that little hiatus I mentioned in Departed. Coming back to this, it took a while before my creative side booted up and ideas started flooding back to me again but when it did, they really broke the proverbial dam.


	2. Introductions

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

It was only when the door closed that Elasti-Girl spoke in a teasing tone. "She calls you Logan and you're both already using the L word? I guess this is serious."

Beast Boy spared her a tired smile. "Very, very serious. So what did you want to talk about?"

"She seems right for you and you two look good together. I'm happy for you both." She admitted with a proud smile. "I just think that you're moving a little fast."

Her tone wasn't accusing or negative in any way so the changeling didn't see the need to start getting too defensive. "Then it's a good thing that this relationship is only between me and Jinx."

One look at her son told her that he wasn't going to budge. She wasn't used to seeing such a strong look of determination on his face. "I guess you're right." She placed her hand on his shoulder as a gesture of good faith before continuing. "Aren't you two a little young to be sleeping together?" It seemed that she wasn't done digging for juicy details.

He made sure to state once more that all they did was sleep. "Jeez, I didn't know that sleeping in the same bed as someone else was a crime. Shackle me up in chains, constable."

_'Since when did my Garfield start making satire wisecracks?'_ She inwardly remarked. Pulling him into a gentle hug, she threw her praise at him. "You've grown, Garfield. I'm proud of you. I hope you sleep well because when Mento gets his hands on you in the morning for bringing an outsider inside here, he'll be furious."

"Thanks mom." He turned to open his bedroom door. "Just don't call me Garfield in front of Jinx."

* * *

Beast Boy's room was nearly beyond clean. The steel colored walls didn't carry any sort of adornments and all of the furniture was a matching light vanilla color. In fact, the only indication that this was indeed Beast Boy's room was the smooth green carpet. It wasn't a very big room but thankfully it was big enough. "It's different, isn't it?" A masculine voice rung out behind Jinx.

Jinx resisted the urge to jump like a startled cat as she turned around to face the intruder. "I'm just happy that we won't be on the move all the time now. It's not like I wanted to throw away the clothes that I liked. Speaking of clothes..." They had to pack light on their journey there so carrying dirty clothes around wasn't an option. It was a mutual decision to just buy new sets of clothes every few stops.

Sliding his backpack off his shoulders, Beast Boy sighed before throwing it to one end of the room. Jinx was a girl, there was no doubt about that. "Yes, Jinx. I'll buy you everything you want tomorrow." He started pulling off his shirt. "Until then I want your clothes off and you under the covers." He jokingly commanded.

Happily complying with his request, the pale girl ended up snuggling with her partner as the steady rhythm of their respective heart beats lulled them to sleep.

* * *

Three loud bangs on the bedroom door startled both Beast Boy and Jinx awake. "BEAST BOY! MY OFFICE, NOW!" Mento sounded delightfully happy this morning.

Jinx pressed her face into the crook of Beast Boy's neck out of reflex as she tried to hide from the unwelcome noise. Letting loose a groan of frustration, she complained. "Ugh! I'm so not in the mood for this right now." She leaned back momentarily and peaked up at Beast Boy who so far had made no inclination to move. "Logan."

"Mmmhm?"

"We have to get up."

_'Unacceptable.'_ Echoed throughout his groggy mind. "No."

She found his reluctance to get up to be another part of his charm. "Seriously, come on. You have to show me where the shower is. I'm not gonna face your family while smelling like you."

"You'll have to drag me out of this bed." He mumbled.

An idea formed in her head, it was an idea that she decided to go through with. She managed to speak out in the cutest, meekest and most adorable voice she could muster. "Please?" Dragging him off the bed was her second best idea, although, she couldn't for the life of her figure out why it wasn't her preferred course of action.

"No." Came his almost enthusiastic response. It was evident from the liveliness of his tone that she'd almost won him over.

She began phase 2 by placing multiple soft and affectionate kisses along his slightly stubble-ridden jawline. It didn't take long for his supposed iron will to break. "Ugh... Fine!"

The duo quickly got dressed in their only spare change of clothes before Beast Boy lead his partner to the girls showers which Jinx found remarkably akin to public showers such as those in swimming pools or gyms, only, there weren't as many cubicles. At least the showerhead dispensed lukewarm instead of freezing cold water. She made a mental note to talk to Beast Boy later about the spartan style of pretty much everything she'd seen so far.

* * *

Mento had decidedly forgone wearing his helmet for this little rendezvous. His brown hair and blue eyes were easily identifiable features of his broadened face, however, the most noticeable features by far were his venomously furrowed brows which stood out as plain as day whilst he stood there watching his adoptive son enter his office.

"Sit." Was all he said. He didn't even bother to gesture towards the chair on the opposite end of his large and quite expensive looking desk.

Complying with Mento's order, Beast Boy took a seat in the rather uncomfortable chair before speaking. "You wanted to see me?"

_'What happened to addressing me as 'sir'?'_ Mento already didn't like his attitude. "Explain."

He maintained the act of innocence. "Explain what?"

Mento bent slightly over as he aggressively yanked open a drawer next to him before pulling out a beige file and slamming it on the desk in front of Beast Boy. "This."

The emerald eyed hero could clearly see that the file was named "H.I.V.E.". He pulled it further towards his end of the desk before flipping it open. The first page listed members of the not so notorious H.I.V.E. Five. Jinx was listed as being the leader of the heinous team of villains. Beast Boy wasn't liking the Batman routine going on here so he decided to force Mento to voice his accusation. "What's the problem here?"

The leader in question gritted his teeth in an effort to stop himself from shouting every single word of his response. "What's the problem? Not only have you brought an unauthorized individual into the headquarters of the Doom Patrol - you've brought a damned criminal into the headquarters of the Doom Patrol! We're not like those Teen Titans, Beast Boy - we have rules - rules that must be followed to the letter."

Beast Boy opened his mouth to retort but Mento cut him off by raising his hand as if to say that he wasn't having any of it. "Just because some whore cozies up to you, it doesn't mean that you should give her the keys to not only your house but also your parents house, Beast Boy! Your actions have proven you to be a liability. If you weren't my son, I'd have-"

Now Mento was cut off by a fuming Beast Boy who banged his fists on the table as he stood up with alarming speed. "You'd have what? You'd have kicked me off the team? You'd have thrown me in jail? Don't let that stop you, STEVE."

"That's Mento to you, boy. If you'd have thought-"

Furious, the young changeling snarled out his unrequested response. "No! If YOU'D have thought that maybe, just maybe, I might be old enough to make my own decisions then you might have bothered to see just how outdated your stupid file is." He forcibly paused to let the information sink in to his opponents think skull before continuing.

"Jinx is not a villain. She was pardoned before she started working with the Teen Titans for half a year. Jinx is MY girlfriend and I take full responsibility for her actions here. If that just isn't good enough for you that then we'll leave. There's no pleasing you, is there?" Beast Boy turned to leave.

"Beast Boy - if you walk out of that door then there is no coming back." Mento warned him.

* * *

Finishing her shower, Jinx had started wandering semi-aimlessly. She turned yet another corner and unfortunately for her, her mind was focused more so on Beast Boy's well being than her own movements and because of that, she bumped into someone wearing a Doom Patrol outfit much like Beast Boy's, only this figure was slightly taller which became more prevalent as he reached out to Jinx's lithe form in order to prevent her from falling flat on her ass. "Careful there, girly." He said in a dry, monotonous voice.

Forced out her thoughts, Jinx had reacted naturally to the situation by scowling and speaking in a rather sardonic tone. "Why don't you watch wh-" Looking up, she finally noticed who she was talking to and thusly altered her attitude completely. "Thank you... Negative Man?" His face was wrapped entirely in bandages so she just assumed it was Negative Man.

"That's me. Lawrence Trainor. Everyone just calls me Larry. I don't believe we've met." He reached a hand out that Jinx gladly accepted. "It's nice to meet you, Ms...?" He trailed off, letting the silence broach his unspoken question.

"Jinx." She was honestly tempted to use her boyfriends last name seeing as though she'd been using it all week. "Just Jinx."

"That's a neat name. What brings you to our humble abode?" He figured that if she was already in the base then she was probably permitted to be there anyway.

That was an easy question to answer. "Beast Boy."

So far it seemed that Negative Man was a very open person. Just like with Elasti-Girl, she knew that they'd get along quite well together.

"So the little guy finally managed to hook one, and a pretty one at that." He teasingly said.

Or maybe they wouldn't. She wasn't about to let anyone else insult Beast Boy. "**Finally** managed to hook one? What's that supposed to mean?" She spoke accusingly. She figured that any girl would be lucky to be with him. _'I know I am.'_

He internally sweat dropped as he realized his mistake. _'Defensive, isn't she?'_ A mistake that he quickly corrected. "Hey - I didn't mean anything by it."

"Good." Yeah. They'd get along just fine.

You could tell by the way the bandages around his mouth moved that he was grinning. "Come on, breakfast is almost ready. You have to try some of Rita's cooking."

* * *

Elasti-Girl nervously waited outside of her husband's office. She had heard muffled shouting coming through the door, which was to be expected, the unexpected part of the whole ordeal was the fact that Beast Boy's voice could be distinctly made out as a part of the ruckus. Usually Mento would give him a one sided verbal lashing and she would be left to pick up the pieces.

Beast Boy's legs didn't falter even as he heard Mento's warning. A few seconds later, he was reaching for the button to open the door when the telepath behind him spoke up. "Garfield... Wait."

The sincerity in his tone made Beast Boy pause. "Please, son, let's talk about this."

The changeling turned around to face his father. "Firstly, apologize."

Mento sighed. "I'm... Sorry for calling you a liability. I would never kick you off the team."

A growl escaped Beast Boy's throat as he took a step back towards the desk. "YOU CALLED MY GIRLFRIEND A WHORE!"

He had completely forgotten that he'd said that about her. "I'm sorry for that as well. I was just mad and upset... Mostly at myself for making you leave the first time. I don't want to lose you again."

The tension in the air lessened as they both came to a silent agreement to sit down at the desk and discuss the situation like grown men.

* * *

Negative Man didn't let the conversation die down during the short walk to the kitchen. "It's been almost a year since I've seen the little squirt, how's he been doin'?"

Jinx could almost detect a hint of excitement in his monotonous voice. "A lot better ever since we..." She stopped herself. _'Ever since we left the Titans.'_

"Ever since you what?" He inquired.

She answered in a neutral tone that declared the end of the conversation. "That's private, sorry."

They entered the large kitchen just as Jinx finished her last sentence. The kitchen was adjoined to an even larger dining area with a sizable marble white counter top serving as a divider between the two areas with a gap between the counter and the wall for people to get through. The walls were the same color as the other walls throughout the entire base - steel gray, yet that didn't detract from the overall atmosphere.

The aroma of sizzling bacon wafted throughout the air, enticing anyone and everyone whilst a small radio tucked away in a corner played tunes from way back in the day.

"CLIFF! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Exclaimed Negative Man.

A lumbering, clay colored metallic construction that happened to be ever so slightly larger than Cyborg spoke in a rough voice. "Rita put me in charge while she went to check on Beast Boy. You know he's back now?" Jinx identified him as being Robot Man. At least now she knew why everything in the base was super sized - they had to accommodate for him.

Negative Man quickly ran over to shove the robot out of the way for whatever good it would do. "Get away from the kitchen! Everything you touch turns to ash - you know the rules! You don't even eat!"

Robot Man grumbled something out as he stepped aside and let Larry take over. "I used to..."

"Yeah, well that was a long time ago, metal man." He reminded him.

The metal giant almost didn't see Jinx in his way as he moved towards the dining area. "Who's this kid?" He said whilst looking down upon her.

Shuffling the pans around, the radioactive man in question provided the answer without looking back. "That's Jinx. Beast Boy's lady friend."

Robot Man's face remained locked in a neutral expression as he leaned down to get a closer look at the silent girl. "You hurt?"

Truth be told, she hadn't felt nervous around the last 2 Doom Patrol members she'd met, but Robot Man was just plain intimidating. "Huh?" She barely managed to bumble out in response.

Bringing a bulky hand up, the robot pointed at the bite mark on Jinx's neck. Realization dawned upon Jinx as she raced to explain the mark without embarrassing herself. "Uh, no, I'm fine. That's supposed to be there - I mean, ugh..." She swiftly put on her game face and toughed it out the only way she knew how. Putting her hands on her hips and frowning slightly, she spoke up. "Why are you so intimidating?"

Robot Man guffawed in response. "I like you, kid." He said before shuffling past Jinx and sitting in his specially fitted chair at the dining table.

Overhearing the entire encounter, Negative Man called out to Jinx. "Eh, don't worry, Jinx. Cliff's a hard nut on the outside but he means well. You get used to it."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm going for around 2500 words per chapter for this story. Gotta up my game! As always - reviews are muchly appreciated... Especially those that identify *cough* writing inconsistencies.


	3. Breakfast

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

Elasti-Girl couldn't hear a single peep of anything coming from her husbands office, it was nerve wracking, really. She was just about to get up and check on them when the door slid open to reveal a grinning Beast Boy. Upon seeing her, he rushed on over to hug his mother. "Hey mom."

Pulling back from the greatly appreciated hug, she addressed him. "You look happy; did you sort everything out?"

Looking back at the closed office door for a second before returning eye contact with Elasti-Girl, Beast Boy answered. "Definitely."

* * *

Jinx was sitting at the dining table with Robot Man. As you may suspect, they didn't have anything to discuss since the robot wasn't one for idle conversation so she just sort of sat there and lost herself in her own thoughts as she waited for Beast Boy to arrive. _'I can't remember my own parents... Beast Boy's lucky to-'_ She paused her thought as she remembered that his biological parents had died. _'On second thought... He deserves a good family. Rita's nice and Mento... Is Mento. The only thing I had growing up was that stupid VHS player that I stole when I joined Dark Way Prep.'_

She started recalling all of her favorite VHS tapes. An actress known as Rita Farr featured in a lot of them. Drawing unicorns wasn't her only secret obsession - sappy romance movies were as well. _'Rita Farr sort of looks like a younger version of Logan's mom.'_ She didn't know that Farr was in all actuality the maiden name of one Rita Dayton. The two people were one and the same.

The playful and ever-charming voice of Beast Boy snapped her out of her thoughts that were verging on becoming daydreams. She looked to her left to see Larry and Beast Boy briefly man hugging each other and before she knew it, she was on her own two feet, walking towards the green teen of the day.

Sensing that a certain ex villain was approaching, Beast Boy turned to greet her just in time to be pulled into a surprisingly long kiss. "What was that for?" He said with a stupid grin on his face.

"I missed you." Was all she said as she pulled him by the hand to the dining area.

"I missed you too but I was only gone for like 25 minutes." Not that he was complaining.

She couldn't waste the opportunity to insert a cheesy line into their dialogue. "It felt like forever."

"Well then, why don't we continue?" He leaned in for another kiss.

Jinx abruptly brought a finger up and placed it on his lips to stop him from going any further. "Morning breath only gets you so far on the Jinx train."

Chuckling at her admittance, he spoke. "Well then..." Leaning down to have access to the right side of his neck, he planted a short yet sweet kiss on his mark upon her.

The paralyzing sensation came once again as the cascade effect started up, sending warm sensations throughout Jinx's entire body and causing her to close her eyes throughout the short yet heart warming ordeal. She wouldn't admit it, but if he'd insisted, she might've told him the truth: he had a 24/7, all access pass to the Jinx train.

Picking up the hitch in her breath, the shape shifter accurately assumed that his small gesture had a much larger impact on his beloved than intended. "Jinx? You alright?"

Opening her eyes and nodding with a slight smile told him that she was just peachy.

* * *

Negative Man came up behind them and starting nudging them towards the chairs. "Sorry to interrupt your little 'session' but Rita's back and breakfast is ready."

Taking the man's hint, the duo promptly took their seats at one side of the rectangular table. Larry and Cliff sat opposite them and Jinx could only assume that Rita and their fearless leader, Mento, would each take up a single chair at their respective ends of the table. _'Typical. The father figure sits at the head of the table with the mother figure being at the other end. Just like an old fashioned family.'_ Jinx thought.

Jinx started the impending conversation with a question. "Do you guys always eat together like this?"

A grunt-like sound emitted from Robot Man. "At least some of us eat." As if in opposition of his comment, the sizzling from a pan in the kitchen grew noticeably louder for a second before calming down as Rita took a pan off the stove.

Ignoring the tin head's remark, Negative Man answered her. "Yeah. Rita starts shouting at us if we all aren't at the table and then she shouts at Mento for not ordering us here."

Her boyfriend next to her piped in. "She doesn't let anyone start eating until we're all here."

Jinx found it comforting to know that at least some people held traditional family values. "A lot of normal families wouldn't be too bothered about whether or not they share meals together nowadays."

"I think she got most of her family time stuff from her days in Hollywood." Beast Boy figured.

Negative Man interjected. "Plus we're not exactly a normal family." His comment was, for the most part, largely ignored.

"Hollywood?" Jinx asked.

Beast Boy was happy to answer. "Rita was a big movie star back in the day before her accident."

Coming over with 2 steaming, food filled plates in her hand, Elasti-Girl overheard her sons last line. "Oh, I wasn't that big of a movie star. I'm more fond of my Olympic swimming medals."

Jinx finally seemed to recognize the connection. "Wait. Rita as in Rita Farr?" She said. _'If she's Rita Farr than she's definitely selling herself short there.'_

Stretching her arms at inhumane levels, she handed Negative Man and Beast Boy their respective plates. Elasti-Girl flashed Jinx a smile before speaking. "Farr is my maiden name. Why do you ask?"

Jinx's facial expression rapidly turned from one of neutrality to one of unrestrained glee. "Oh my god! I love your movies! I had all of them on VHS while growing up - you and Leonard Boswell were perfect together in Conflict of Hearts!"

Beast Boy noted that his partners vocal inflection rose ever so slightly. He'd never seen her go total fan girl like this and it downright amusing to him. Elasti-Girl was just happy to have a true fan of her work in her household since none of the other men had ever wanted to discuss the topic of her extremely successful movies. "Really, dear? Everyone on set used to call him Lenny because he kept following me around everywhere like a child. In fact, he convinced his agent that we should've done several more movies together."

* * *

Jinx was about to compliment Elasti-Girl further when Mento came in. The atmosphere in the room became a lot more tense as he took his place at the head of the table. He didn't look happy at all. Wordlessly, Rita signaled Beast Boy to accompany her before shuffling back to the kitchen to retrieve the rest of the meal that she'd prepared.

Safely within the confines of the kitchen, she whispered a little something to her son. "When are you going to marry her?"

Despite the fact that it was meant as a sarcastic quip, it sent the green boy tumbling down the ever looming spire of embarrassment. Thankfully, she didn't dwell on it for too long before handing him a few glasses filled with apple juice to take to the table which greatly assuaged his chagrin. Returning to the dining table, it could be noted that a thick silence coated the air and Jinx was refraining from looking in Mento's direction.

Elasti-Girl slid Jinx a large plate filled with a variety of different breakfast foods such as scrambled eggs, spam, toast and bacon. _'Who on Earth has both spam AND bacon for breakfast?'_ She wondered. Of course this was a problem for her since she'd promised herself to be a vegetarian for as long as she was with Beast Boy which she planned to be forever. Looking over to her right, she saw Beast Boy's plate merely had what looked like a large portion of tofu scramble and some sort of bacon substitute.

Jinx couldn't decide whether or not it would be rude to tell her host but that didn't particularly matter since such dilemmas had never stopped her before. "Uh... Rita?" Seeing that she'd grabbed her attention, Jinx continued. "I don't mean to be rude, but I'm a vegetarian." It was close enough to the truth. She was halfway between being a vegetarian and a full on vegan (just like Beast Boy).

Upon hearing the feline eyed heroine, Robot Man grunted. "Not another one. One of 'em is bad enough as it is."

Elasti-Girl's mouth curved into a silent "o" shape before her shoulders slumped in defeat. "I'm so sorry, Jinx. I didn't know." She was actually disappointed in herself for not checking on the dietary requirements of her guest. It was a shame too, because... "I'm afraid that I don't really have any food at all. We just got back from an expedition in the Caribbean and I only had a small time to pick up breakfast this morning." In the Doom Patrol, "expedition" is just a euphemism for "stakeout".

Without thinking too much about it, Beast Boy reached over and swapped his own plate with Jinx's before carrying her plate off to the kitchen where he placed it on the counter and then proceeded to return to his seat, seemingly satisfied with only his glass of apple juice.

Everyone apart from Jinx was touched by Beast Boy's gesture. It's not everyday you see the mean, green, broccoli eating machine pass up on a decent meal.

Seeing her lover return to the table, she started protesting against his act of selflessness. "Logan, you can't expect me to just let you starve."

Sensing an impending quarrel, Negative Man leaned over to his metal plated team mate and whispered something towards him. "Sheesh, domestic issues."

Beast Boy wasn't having any of it. Jinx's needs far outweighed his own. One vehement look straight into her eyes told her that he wasn't going to budge one inch. "I'll grab something to eat later when we go out."

Huffing in defeat, the ex villain eyed her plate before picking her fork up and digging in. _'I'll get him back for this.'_

Looking around, Elasti-Girl noticed that Jinx was the only person eating. "Well? What are you two waiting for? Is my cooking really that bad?" She said, giving both Negative Man and Mento stern, suggestive looks.

* * *

Apart from bringing a relatively unknown stranger into their domain, Mento had largely approved of Beast Boy's new "style". It seemed that he was now willing to stand up for himself and to put others needs before his own. Mento had been deadly silent throughout the entirety of breakfast because he was busy examining and evaluating Jinx's actions. All of them. From the way she maintained a naturally straight posture to the way she spoke and even to the steadiness of her breathing. Everyone on the team knew that it was standard procedure so they chose to act as if he wasn't even there.

In a way, his next view could be misconstrued as sexist but he was looking at it from a purely tactical point of view - Jinx took orders that she didn't like with minimal fuss. Beast Boy used to always ask "why" when ever he was given a task to carry out.

He was also imposing an impression upon Jinx. An impression that states he is to be respected and listened to. He was called Mento (not Steve) by practically everyone on his team apart from his wife who sometimes said it affectionately. A team that doesn't respect their leader is bound to fail. So far, very little about her had dissuaded him from honoring his deal with Beast Boy.

Everyone had finished eating and idle chatter had begun to die down as Negative Man and Elasti-Girl had finished asking Jinx to run through the "tell me about yourself" routine. Now was a perfect time to conduct business. "Jinx." Mento's voice sounded out of place as it hadn't been heard at all during the meal.

Rather unexpectedly, Jinx snapped her eyes straight towards Mento's own piercing eyes. "Yes?"

He'd fully expected her to hesitate before going straight for eye contact at this stage. The truth was that Jinx had experienced plenty of psychological warfare throughout her experience as a student at both of the villainous institutes that she'd attended. After suddenly feeling the urge to avoid looking towards Mento's direction at all, she caught on quickly to his little game.

The only thing she gathered from his silent treatment was that he was a bigot. She didn't take too kindly to being played with. _'Well... Logan can play with me whenever he wants.'_ She inwardly giggled at her moment of silent immaturity during a time like this.

"I have a proposal for you, if you're willing to listen." The strict leader said in a relatively polite, businesslike voice.

She nodded affirmatively. "I'm willing to listen to it."

"Thank you. Beast Boy has brought it to my attention that you have both quit the Teen Titans, the reason that I've been given for your impromptu resignation is that your old team betrayed you. Is this true?" He said.

Jinx nodded once more. The rest of the Doom Patrol hadn't known exactly why Beast Boy was back with a girlfriend so it was all news to them.

He flashed her a somewhat forced smile before continuing. "Only members of the Doom Patrol are permitted to remain in these premises for extended periods of time. Beast Boy is determined to only remain here if you can as well so I am formally inviting you to become a fully pledged member of the Doom Patrol." Pausing for a breath to steady himself, he broached the question. "Do you accept my invitation?"

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I've noticed that I naturally tend to use "suddenly", "quickly" and "that" a lot (I go back and use appropriate synonyms where ever possible, of course). Interesting fo'shizzle. I would've gotten this chapter out 2 or 3 days sooner but I was struck by a fast acting cold (I'm still recovering even as I write this). QQ.


	4. Cold Acceptance

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

Jinx glanced over to her beau to get his opinion on whether or not she should join the Doom Patrol. He eagerly nodded his head in a show of support. It was his idea in the first place since they didn't really have any other option so he didn't feel so bad about influencing her decision. Having been on the receiving end of unwarranted advice on many occasions previously, it felt nice to be the one giving advice.

Elasti-Girl, Negative Man and Robot Man were all in varying states of shock. Elasti-Girl was the least shocked of the bunch because she knew that Mento had enjoyed having his son around, even if he never showed it, and that this was just a clear attempt to get him to stay. The other two heroes figured that Beast Boy must've done some serious persuading in order to get Mento to accept Jinx just like that. The changeling had to prove himself before they'd even considered giving him a place in their ranks.

Taking Beast Boy's indicative gesture as a yes, she returned her gaze to Mento's cold features. "Yes, I do."

Not wasting a second, he continued in an unenthusiastic tone. "Excellent decision. The only formality remaining is your oath."

"Oath?" She questioned.

"Yes. All Doom Patrol members here have taken the exact same one. It states that you will do what ever it takes to stop evil; it's not very long."

"Alright. Do I have to put my hand over my heart or something pointless like that?" She asked. _'If I have to do the chicken dance while saying it...'_ The thought almost brought a smile to her face.

Beast Boy piped in. "No, just sit there looking pretty."

Before the changeling could receive a "reward" from his belle for his suave ways, Mento sighed at the unrequested interruption and proceeded to speak. "Now repeat after me: I, Jinx, do solemnly swear to oppose the forces of injustice and evil..."

She repeated the first line.

"... and to do all that is within my power to bring a swift cessation to their immoral acts..."

Once more, she repeated his words.

"... no matter the cost..."

Jinx hesitated. Everyone around her was completely understanding of her reluctance so they gave her time to think about it. _'No matter the cost?'_ She began contemplating what she may one day be forced to do as a result of this oath. Deciding that she'd deal with that issue when it arose, she proceeded to say the 4 words.

"... I will uphold this oath for as long as I live or until I am formally discharged from the Doom Patrol."

Finding the permanency of the oath to be daunting, she went along with it and finished repeating the final line. Everyone around the table began to clap in celebration, even Robot Man who simply brought two of his opposing fingers together a few times in order to avoid making to much noise with his huge metallic hands.

Beast Boy was (unsurprisingly enough) the first to congratulate her. "Welcome to the crew, beautiful."

"Hear, hear!" Cheered Negative Man.

Smiling as she dropped her hands and placed them together on the table, Elasti-Girl did her part as well. "Welcome to the team."

Robot Man made sure to join in. "Nice work there, Pinky."

_'Pinky? I hope that doesn't stick.'_ Thought the pink haired girl. Sure, being called that name because of her pink hair was something that she could deal with but she had a nagging feeling that Cliff was calling her that also because of the fact that she was tiny in comparison to his rather large structure.

Her boyfriend decided to take matters into his own hands as he stood up. In all actuality, the name "Jinx" was probably a more accurate word for what he took into his hands because he moved over and lifted her out of the chair she was oh-so-comfortably sitting in and allowed her to place herself in a standing position before pulling her into chaste kiss and a short hug that they both came smiling out of.

Afterwards he sat down in her chair before pulling her by the waist down with him which of course heavily influenced her to emit a girlish squeal of delight. She repaid his act of sudden intimacy by wriggling a little longer in his lap than she should have in an exaggerated effort to get comfortable.

* * *

Deciding that he'd let the team process the news for long enough, Mento stood up and reached into his pocket as he began walking over to where the chromatically differed duo were sitting. Pulling out a round communicator device that had a large purple circle covering the top of it with black encasing the edges and the base of it, he handed it to her. Beast Boy had felt that the way Mento carried himself was a little off so he made it a point to check the communicator later, knowing him, the Doom Patrol leader had probably bugged it or something.

Returning to his seat at the head of the table, the telepath proceeded to change the subject. "Beast Boy. I'm hereby reinstating your place on the team roster. Your indefinite leave is cancelled." He looked at the boy to ensure that he'd agree with his action. After receiving a nod from his adopted son, he continued. "Now, I'd like to discuss this General Zahl business."

_'General Zahl? That name sounds familiar...'_ Beast Boy mused. "Don't you mean Captain Zahl?" He questioned. Zahl was a vicious Nazi U-boat commander back in his day.

Neither names rung any of Jinx's bells. Mento's pending clarification didn't help her out that much either. "After escaping from us the last time we fought him together, he disappeared and spent a long time regathering his strength - we received a video message from him a month ago where he voiced his self promotion to general and also that he'd get his revenge on us soon."

"Is that why you guys were in the Caribbean?" Jinx asked.

Nodding, he responded. "Yes. We tracked the message to its origin where we discovered an abandoned base that left us with only a slim lead - it was a DNA sample. I needed the equipment here to follow it up. I'll investigate further when the DNA results come in tomorrow."

Negative Man decided to partake in the discussion. "So what are we going to do in the meantime, boss?"

"Relax." Was his curt answer.

_'Relax? Has Madame Rouge taken Mento's place?'_ Everyone on the team thought along the same lines. "Relax" and "Mento" just don't go together. Surely there must've been some catch. Sensing that his team was on edge, he spoke once more. "Just take the time off and do what ever you want." Mento stood up and made to leave.

Just before walking out the door, Mento turned back to the team who were still speechless. "Besides. Beast Boy and Jinx have to prepare for their evaluations, or in Beast Boy's case; his reevaluation." With that said, he left the room without waiting for his teams response.

* * *

"WHAT?" Shouted out Beast Boy in a shockingly high pitched voice that startled Jinx out of his lap and onto her own two feet.

Both Negative Man and Robot Man busted out in laughter. "Oh man, Mento got you good!" Exclaimed the teary eyed heap of bandages.

The green teen couldn't handle it. "NO!"

Elasti-Girl had a wide smile on her face as she stood up and went to the kitchen for what ever reason.

Jinx had no idea what was so funny. "Evaluation? What for?"

"NO!" Beast Boy couldn't believe it. He was about to drop his head onto the table in front of him. Jinx noticed his action and promptly moved her plate out of the way before he ended up in a mess.

Seeing that Beast Boy had made no indication that he was moving his head away from the apparently welcoming surface of the table any time soon, Jinx waited for the two laughing sheep to stop their antics and clear off before talking to her boyfriend again. Elasti-Girl was doing something in the kitchen so for now they were alone.

Sternly, she brought up her question again. "What's the evaluation for, Logan?"

"To see how good we are." He sighed, trying to relax.

"How good we are? At what?"

"Everything." Was his meek response.

She didn't have time to push for a clearer answer because Elasti-Girl popped her head over the counter and called out to Jinx. "Jinx? I see you already have a plate in your hand - would you mind bringing the dishes over here?"

Deciding to drop the whole evaluation issue for now, Jinx answered. "Of course I wouldn't mind. I'll be right there." It was the least she could do.

Elasti-Girl dropped her guest an appreciative smile before turning and returning to her previous duties. Jinx gave her handsome boyfriend a concerned look before compliantly delivering the tableware to the sink.

Beast Boy called out to the two ladies as he walked into the kitchen behind Jinx. "I'll just go take that shower now. I'll show you around the city when I get out, 'kay?" He didn't sound happy.

"Okay, Logan." Was all she could say before she was pulled into another subdued kiss. Afterwards, Beast Boy retreated out of the room.

* * *

Noticing that Jinx had brought in another batch of plates, Elasti-Girl asked for another favor. "Would you be dear and load them into the dishwasher for me? I'm afraid that my hands are a little preoccupied. The dish soap and sponge should be right there."

If anyone besides Elasti-Girl or Beast Boy had asked her that question then she'd have laughed at them, besides, she had a gut feeling telling her that denying the request would've been a bad idea. "Uhh... Okay." She tersely said.

After watching the stretchable woman pull out a shopping bag filled with various ingredients from a nearby cupboard, Jinx returned her attention to the fairly small amount of work ahead of her. A full minute of dish clashing and clinking of silverware went by before the mother figure on the other end of the kitchen called out to Jinx. "Do you know Beast Boy's favorite dish?"

She paused her current action for a second before speaking warily. "No... Not really. I just know of a few things that he likes and that he doesn't really like tofu nearly as much as he lets on, I think it just happens to be very healthy and easy to prepare."

Smiling at the fact that she'd known the "tofu truth" about Beast Boy, the elder hero continued with another question. "Then do you know how to cook?"

_'Is this some kind of girlfriend material test?'_ Jinx thought. She wasn't myopic about the whole topic of gender roles and she certainly wasn't a feminist, if anything, she was an anti-feminist or even a realist. She accepted that she was a young woman and frankly, men and women definitely weren't created as equals - the two sexes are naturally more suited towards accomplishing different tasks.

Still, it didn't mean that she'd be some mindless house servant for Beast Boy. "Only enough to survive."

Elasti-Girl grinned at the prospect of finally spending girl time with a fellow heroine. "I'll have to teach you how to make pumpkin pie sometime then. It's his favorite."

Finished with loading the dishes, Jinx decided that she'd leave them as they are since she had no idea how to work that specific dish washer. As long as he appreciated it, she wouldn't mind making pumpkin pie for her lover. "Is that what you're making right now?"

She had just started buttering an oven dish when Jinx asked the question. "Close, but no cigar. I'm making apple crisp. It's a close second favorite of his. I don't always get a lot of time to do these sorts of things so I try to make the time if I can. I know Beast Boy tries to stick with vegan food but he's going to have to tough out a little dairy produce if he wants to have some."

Elasti-Girl didn't stop there. "Speaking of Beast Boy: how did you two meet?"

The circumstances of their initial meeting oh-so-long ago wasn't exactly ideal. Slade had hired her, Mammoth and Gizmo to get rid of the Teen Titans. "What exactly do you mean by 'meet'?"

"Well, when did you two first get to know each other?"

_'I can answer that, I guess.'_ Jinx figured. "A little more than a week ago."

"I didn't know that my Garfield worked that fast." His adoptive mother sounded impressed.

Almost giggling at her inaccurate presumption, Jinx corrected her."It was more or less me who started it. I had just left some jerk who wasn't treating me right when I found Beast Boy alone and unconscious from a fight."

"What did you do with him?"

"I took him to my place..." Place wasn't the right term. A hole in the ground was remarkably far more accurate. "... and looked after him." Another half-lie. Beast Boy was looking after her more so than she was looking after him. She'd never felt more vulnerable at that time than ever before and all the green guy wanted to do was comfort her.

Elasti-Girl followed up with another question. "May I ask what made you interested in him?"

"Sleeping with him was nice, plus he's a sweetheart." The unlucky girl blurted out.

"You slept with him?" Was Elasti-Girl's alarmed response.

Realizing her slight slip, she attempted damage control. "I mean, no - or, yes. I only had one bed so it was kind of that or sleep on the ground."

Glad that Jinx hadn't taken advantage of her son, the Doom Patrol veteran silently forgave her. "Oh! I guess that's okay then..." She trailed off, not knowing quite what to say at this point.

* * *

They were both content to let the conversation die there. Figuring that she had a little more time to spend before Beast Boy was ready, she leaned against the counter and watched Elasti-Girl work. Before long, Jinx remembered something. "What's the evaluation that Mento mentioned?"

Elasti-Girl looked back at Jinx with an overt look of remorse etched upon her features. "Mento will be running you through a multitude of tests to determine everything about you. From your personality traits to your strengths and weaknesses. It normally lasts around a week."

That sounds a little worrying. "Is it hard?"

"It's designed to test your limits and it's normally done before you're invited to join the team. We've only tested a few other people besides Beast Boy but he's been the only one to stick with the program. I felt bad for him when he did it - he was only a kid. By the end of week he was passing out on his feet by 2 PM and could hardly walk."

"What sort of things did he have to do?" Jinx asked, the sinking feeling she had only worsened after hearing that last statement.

A bleak answer was all that awaited her. "I don't think you want to know."

True. If it was as bad as it sounded, she probably didn't want to know.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I've been calling Elasti-Girl, Negative Man and Robot Man by their respective names in the narrative and I've come to the conclusion that doing so will only complicate things in the long run, so I've gone back and changed all instances (that I know of) of their real names occurring in the narrative to their hero aliases.


	5. Fracture

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

Our (arguably) favorite duo had spent half a week settling in before beginning their evaluations. During that time, Mento had discovered that the DNA sample he found belonged to a supposed prominent male microbiologist named Cyma Dwan from some obscure village in Botswana which was admittedly unheard of since Botswana isn't necessarily known for producing world class scientists. Mr. Dwan had... Well... Mento didn't know. Most of the sources containing information on the scientist regarded said information with great importance and thusly, breaking through their security systems was proving to be very time consuming, but that wasn't all that was on the leader's mind. Today was the first day of Beast Boy's and Jinx's evaluations.

Glancing to his right, the telepath checked their status by observing a camera feed. He'd been generous enough to allow them to work in the same nondescript workout room. They were assigned treadmill duty until he said otherwise.

Jinx's voice could be fuzzily heard through Mento's sound system which prompted him to mute it as he had a lot of work to do. "Why did he leave after telling us to jog until he got back?" She asked Beast Boy who was jogging at the same pace on the treadmill right next to her. A mere test of their locomotive abilities didn't seem very challenging at all.

"I don't think he wants to stand there while we tire ourselves out." He huffed out. They'd only been at it for a good 10 minutes so far and if the experience was anything like last time, they'd be at it until they dropped dead. He quickly decided that the sight of Jinx in those wonderfully tight black leggings and green spaghetti tank top were worth it.

Looking back to the display on her treadmill, Jinx saw that her setting was locked at 9, what ever that meant. It felt like a quick jog. "Mine's stuck at 9, what about yours?"

"Same here." Came his short response. He was too busy worrying about Starfire to discuss treadmill settings. They'd tried contacting her over their X communicator numerous times over the past few days but they weren't receiving any response. Of course both Jinx and Beast Boy had neglected to tell anyone on the Doom Patrol of their knowledge of Starfire and her relationship with Red X.

Not that she was aware of her time, but, Jinx had managed to go for a full 1 hour and 9 minutes before reaching her breaking point. Beast Boy went on for a quite a while longer, ultimately achieving a time of 1 hour and 37 minutes. She didn't mind waiting for him, it gave her plenty of time to catch her breath and "admire" his lean physique. _'He's definitely not the short, bumbling kid that I tried to kill back in the day... He's just so lean, I could eat him.'_ She almost purred in delight before the absurdity of actually eating her partner came to mind. _'Well, I could. I'm not going to, obviously.'_

Her thoughts started centering around their relationship. They hadn't talked about their amorous encounter that occurred the morning they headed out to finish the final stretch to the Doom Patrol headquarters. They hadn't talked about the Titans. They hadn't talked about a lot of things. _'Are we just pretending that everything is okay?'_ She mused. _'I'll ask him about it later... Maybe he's just forgotten?'_ She paused to assess the possibility. _'No. How could he forget?'_

* * *

Mento had a sneaking suspicion Beast Boy hadn't been entirely truthful about the cause of his permanent excursion from the Teen Titans. He'd been reviewing news and government reports and had found that Robin was admitted to Jump City General Hospital with 5 broken ribs, a pulmonary contusion, a broken wrist, a fractured hip and damage to his thoracic vertebrae but nothing that would result in any paralysis if treated appropriately. All in all, Mento regarded the bird brain's injuries as superficial. He'd make a full recovery in 5 or so months.

_'No doubt Beast Boy used one of his ophidian forms to do that kind of damage. It's remarkable that he could defeat his opponent without sustaining any injuries.'_ Mento was almost impressed. This news meant that he had to update his records.

He'd only dug through the data he had for a brief few minutes, and as far as he could tell, Raven and Starfire had disappeared completely off the face of the Earth. No one knew where they were. Cyborg on the other hand had taken over temporary leadership of the Titans and refused to comment on the teams status. He'd called in a few honorary members to help him defend Jump City until Robin had recovered and permanent replacements could be found.

* * *

Waltzing into the room like he owned the place (he technically did), Mento approached the feline eyed heroine and her winded shape shifting counterpart who happened to still be recovering from the results of his constant and prolonged movement. They were sitting next to each other on a wooden bench, both enjoying their limited comfort that leaning on each other provided so much that they hadn't noticed their new official leader approaching. "Your stamina is well within acceptable ranges. Beast Boy, you performed 43% longer than last time."

"Yeah, well..." He paused to intake air and some good ol' bottled H2O that Jinx had kindly fetched him while he was still running. "... I failed last time."

Not commenting on the green teens words, Mento continued in an authoritative voice. "You have 5 minutes." With that said, he turned away and left the room.

"5 minutes until what?" Jinx sulkily called out to no one.

Groaning, Beast Boy responded. "Who knows."

"You've done this before, genius. Shouldn't you know?" She asked.

"Last time I started with Mathematics, English and Science tests! He's rearranged everything."

"Ugh! I hate that man. You know, in the 4 days that I've been here, I haven't had a single real conversation with him." She looked over to Beast Boy as if it was his fault.

He was too drained at this point to find the effort to raise his hands in mock defense. "What? Don't look at me. I haven't talked with him either."

"Well, he's an asshole." It seemed that Jinx was still upset about being forced to stay behind at the base with Beast Boy when Phobia attempted to steal something from a science lab a day earlier. The only reason she was given was that they weren't ready.

"I'm happy that we can both agree on that." He said, intertwining his hand with one of hers and giving it a slight squeeze.

Appreciating the small gesture, Jinx turned to face her apparent soulmate. "Logan, can I talk with you in private later?"

He gave her a quizzical look before answering. "Sure thing, babe."

It was now that Mento came back into the room. He signaled the young heroes to come over to the station that he was it which they promptly did. "This device measures the force of your punch in pounds per square inch." It was a relatively small square box that was attached to the wall. There looked to be some sort of soft blue foam in the middle of it that was surrounded by a black metal border. A readout screen was on the top of the contraption.

Mento continued. "When I say so, I want you, Jinx, to take a single step forward and punch the blue area as hard as you can."

Nodding, the girl stepped into position.

Flipping the device on, Mento gave her the go ahead. "Punch."

She took a step forward and pushed all of her weight into her right fist as she flung it forward. Making contact with the blue area, Jinx noted that it seemed to absorb her fist - it didn't hurt at all.

"421 psi. We'll work on your form." Mento commented. In other words, he wasn't happy with the result.

Beast Boy went up next. He achieved a result of 634 psi that Mento decided not to comment on. _'I won't ever be good enough for you, will I?'_ Thought the emerald eyed boy.

Magically pulling a pen and a clipboard with a sheet of paper on it out of nowhere, Mento jotted down the results. "Questions first, then we'll move onto combat practice." He waved his hand towards the bench next to him, indicating that the duo should sit and get comfortable which they took the opportunity to do. "Robin's files on your capabilities lacked detail, Jinx."

"Robin's files? Did you hack the Titan mainframe?" Beast Boy interjected.

Mento gave his adoptive son a "don't ask, don't tell" look before continuing. "Jinx, how do you control your hexes?"

"With my mind. I find directing them with my arms to be the easiest way of using them. Making them appear out of nowhere requires concentration."

Not glancing up from his notes, he asked another question. "How can you judge what impact your hexes will have?"

"If the possibility of something going wrong is above zero then I can make it go wrong. I can't control anything beyond that."

_'Interesting...'_ An idea began formulating in his mind. "If something has multiple possibilities, can you choose which one you desire to exploit?"

She was afraid that the randomness of her powers would somehow devalue her in the eyes of Mento. "... No."

Still not missing a step, Mento pressed forward. "Do your abilities physically exhaust you?"

"Large things do, small things don't." She answered.

"How well versed are you in sorcery?"

Jinx was starting to wonder if this game of 20 questions would ever end. "Not very."

Jotting down a few notes, the telepath looked back up and turned his eyes towards Beast Boy. "Does changing still hurt?"

Even though Jinx was aware that his shape shifting was painful, Beast Boy still looked a little nervous. "Uhm... Yeah."

"Any changes to report?" It was obvious that he didn't think there was anything else.

Tapping his index fingers together, the changeling's statement contradicted Mento's belief. "Well, there is one thing."

Mento arched his brow.

"My... Tongue." The embarrassment was clear just by his voice.

The hesitance in the boy's responses were starting to annoy him. "Boy, this isn't a doctor's appointment. Spit it out."

"If I lick a wound, it heals like really fast." He hurriedly said.

Mento didn't doubt him. It sounded like a useful ability to have. "How fast?"

Surprisingly encouraged by his leaders impassive tone, Beast Boy went on. "A couple seconds."

"Show me." He deadpanned.

Obediently, Beast Boy brought up the underside of his forearm and nicked it with one of the inhumanely sharp nails on his opposite hand. Before he would've undoubtedly bled to death from the tiny cut he inflicted upon himself, he lapped at the wound with his tongue. Pulling away, it healed in a matter of seconds.

"Interesting. I'll look into later. Until then, follow me." Was all he said before he turned on his heals and left the room with the two younger Doom Patrollers hot on his trail.

* * *

They trio entered a moderately sized gym with a high ceiling and plenty of room for various activities to be completed. Mento went digging around in a mildly discrete side cabinet, he pulled out a steel rod that was long enough to be considered a bo staff. Walking over to one side of the gym, he placed it in the ground and locked it into place with a small latch that was no doubt designed for such a thing.

Jinx had only now noticed that the "staff" had a few notches in it, no doubt for securing nets with. _'Must be for volleyball or something.'_ She figured. She looked to the other side of the gym and saw an identical hole which validated her conclusion.

Setting his sights on the only girl present, he spoke. "I want you to throw a hex at this rod."

"What? Why?" It seemed like a strange request.

"It's either that or you can try punching it." His impatience for those who question orders was evident in his tone.

Beast Boy leaned over and whispered her some advice. "I think you should go for the first option, it sounds a lot less painful."

She decidedly vetoed against punching a steel rod. "Alright, fine." Raising a single hand, she ejected a bolt of pink energy from her hand that hit its target dead on. Nothing happened. "Happy?"

Mento's facial expression didn't change in the slightest. "Now this time, I want you to hit the rod and hex it at the same time."

Frowning, she protested. "The only thing that would do is give me a broken hand."

"Then let me make that an order. I command you to hit the rod with your hand with sufficient force in any manner you deem fit and to hex it as you come into contact with it."

Placing his hand on her shoulder, Beast Boy spoke gently to her. "Jinx, you don't have to do it if you don't want to."

Once more appreciating his kind gesture, she turned towards him and leaned in for a chaste kiss. "Yes, I do."

Wordlessly, the unlucky girl grumped on over to the rod before turning her head to glare at Mento who had then crossed his arms and began tapping his feet. Seeing that he was unfazed by her action, she huffed before straightening her right hand out in preparation for a knifehand strike. She brought her hand backwards as if she was about to backhand the defiant pole and before Beast Boy knew it, she drove her hand forward and made brief contact with the pole, creating a brief flare of pink light as she did so.

Slowly but surely, a jagged line could be seen spreading along pole from the point of contact. It eventually split into half, resulting in a loud clang as the loose half collided with the wooded floor.

Unfortunately, Jinx also happened to fracture her fifth metacarpal. "FUCK!"

* * *

Taking a second to rub the bruise that he sported along his jawline, Mento was candid with his next thought. _'I should've complimented that 634 psi punch when I had the chance...'_ Shortly after Jinx damaged her own hand because of his orders, he received a blow to the face from none other than his own son.

Elasti-Girl had convinced him to cut the evaluation process short after the incident. While he didn't agree, he definitely saw the health benefits towards doing so. It was still worthwhile to know that if Jinx manipulated things with her own physical force, she could tip the balance of probability in her favor and enhance the effect of her own blows by using her powers in tandem with them. He was just lucky that she wasn't the one who had delivered the punch to his jawline.

Throughout the rest of the day, small trickles of information came steadily to Mento. He eventually discovered that Cyma Dwan was an obvious anagram for Macy Dawn. This threw Mento's search almost back to square one as he had to start looking up an entirely different person with a completely different name and gender.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Last chapter was a bore to write. I enjoyed this one (whew); I had to Gewgle quite a few things that I just didn't even. Sometimes life is like that - you just don't even. I'm glad that I could inject some more plot into the story. I like plot.


	6. Impulsivity

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

After rather affectionately numbing the injured area of her right hand with his magical tongue, Beast Boy led Jinx down to the med bay so that he could retrieve a suitable hand splint to prevent her from accidentally worsening her condition. The med bay itself was unremarkable. High quality cabinets, both with opaque wooden doors and transparent glass doors, lined the walls. Basic medical equipment and various medications were tucked away neatly in said cabinets. A storage closet lay open in a corner of the room for all to access stored supplies that typically aren't used as often, such as splints, casting materials, specific surgical instruments and many other things.

Propping Jinx up on the single fixed bed, he began rummaging around in the dark closet for the right splint, and after 10 minutes; he emerged with the necessary item. As he was adjusting it to fit comfortably to her hand, he decided to bring up their earlier conversation. "So what did ya wanna talk about?"

"Us. But first I wanna thank you for 'defending' me back there." With her one good hand, she grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him into lustful kiss involving copious amounts of aggressive exploration with their respective tongues into their respective mouths.

Pulling away due to the typical lack of oxygen, Beast Boy had a dumb grin on his face. "No problem, dude."

Protesting the term that didn't quite befit a lady of her status, she mockingly furrowed her brows. "That's dudette to you, Greenie." The playful smirk on her face disappeared as her tone changed to a more serious one. "Can we talk serious for a minute now?"

"Sure." He hopped up and sat next to her on the medical bed. Wrapping his right arm around her back and resting his hand on her hip, he waited for her to continue.

The moment of truth soon arrived. "We haven't really talked about the Titans, have we?"

Racking his brain as he ran through his various memories of the past few days, he found her question to hold some merit. "I guess you're right. Why?"

"Don't you think we should? You knocked out Raven and nearly put Robin in a coma. You know how unreasonable those two are." Unreasonable wasn't quite the right word.

"Birds of a feather flock together..." He mumbled under his breath. "You think they'll come looking for us?"

"I think he'll tell everyone his version of the story and this is really the first place they'd look." She truthfully admitted. Robin's version of the story probably included the imaginary part where Beast Boy and Jinx attempted to murder the rest of the Titans.

"Oh man... You think he'll get Batman to come after us? I've always wanted to meet him. Oh! What about Superman?" Beast Boy sounded excited.

Jinx frowned at her boyfriend's response. "Not that I have experience, but I don't think you want to meet Batman or Superman when they're trying to smash you into a wall."

The innocent smile vanished right off his face as he realized the foolishness of his outburst. He tried to play it cool. "So uhh... We should probably have a plan just in case someone does come for us."

She agreed. "We should."

"Definitely." He tried to sound confident.

She looked despondent. "Yeah." Came her meager response.

The two sat together in silence for a minute. Beast Boy took the opportunity to consider their situation. _'I don't think I'll be able to fight the rest of the Titans...'_ He had some good friends amongst the ranks of the Teen Titans. _'Well, if they try to touch Jinx then I guess I would. What are we going to do if the Justice League comes after us? Robin is going to tattle to his dad, I know it.'_ He paused to take a deep breath and to inhale his girlfriends scent which greatly calmed him down.

He decided to try and change the subject. "You're not wearing any of that foresty perfume today." He intoned.

"It wasn't 'foresty', it was juniper. You told me that you preferred my natural 'scent'" She meekly said.

It was thoughtful that she'd do such a thing purely for him. "Alright, fine - juniper. But that was like 3 days ago."

"Well, I remembered." She didn't know whether to feel embarrassed or proud. The tension in the air soon returned as the conversation died once more.

* * *

Elasti-Girl was in her husbands office inquiring about the progress of the days evaluations. She could tell by the fact that he had a bruise on his jaw that it probably didn't go well. After figuring out what happened, she voiced her disapproval of Mento's actions. "Why the hell would you tell Jinx to do that?"

He held no answer for her. That kind of attitude just wasn't good enough. "Damn it, answer me Steve. You've had it out for her ever since she came here. What's your problem?"

Mento cut eye contact with his wife and resumed looking at some obscure reports on his desk. Not many people had that effect on him. "You know what my problem is."

"She's some sort of ex villain? Is that it? Well, I can assure you that she's a very nice young girl. If you'd just take 2 seconds to stop avoiding her like the plague and to sit down and talk with her, you might realize that." Elasti-Girl was grateful that Jinx was apart of Beast Boy's life now. He was practically a different person when she was around - he was always confident, well mannered and he even dropped his facade of clumsiness.

She knew that the facade was just a defense mechanism to cope with every unfortunate thing in his life and the fact that a girl he'd hardly known for hardly 2 weeks was able to tear it down when his own mother couldn't... It told her that Jinx was beyond special to the boy.

Snapping his eyes back towards Elasti-Girl, he stood up, both literally and in defense of his own actions. "Criminals don't just reform! She changed over to the winning side and started sleeping with every hero she could get her hands on. Right after she started seeing Beast Boy - do you know what happened?" It was a rhetorical question. "They both suddenly sent the rest of their team to the ER and they come running back here!"

Resenting his accusation, she voiced her opinion. "What? She isn't good enough for him? Are you calling my daughter in-law a whore?"

He angrily countered the brunette's disturbing response. "She's not your daughter in-law!"

"She will be, whether you like it or not." She stated it as if it were fact.

_'Surely she doesn't really mean...'_ He thought. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I didn't want to tell you like this, but I happen to know that Garfield is going to propose to her in a few months." She didn't sound remorseful, in fact, she sounded rather pompous - as if she were attempting to rub the fact in his face out of contempt.

Hoping to bring a swift end to the matter, Mento declared his intent. "What? They're both underage! That boy has no idea what marriage even is, I won't give them my consent."

"It's a good thing that he only needs the consent of one parent then." She stated.

_'Unbelievable. Doesn't she see that it's in the best interests of both of them?'_ He was starting to get annoyed. "You can't seriously be considering this. Why would you let either of them throw their lives away?"

"You know full well that in our line of work, lots of people don't live long enough to retire and it's clear that they both love each other very much."

Raising his voice ever so slightly, the telepath rejected her reasoning. "Love? What do they know about love? They're children for Christ's sake. Jinx doesn't even have any identification, she can't get married." He had a fair point.

Elasti-Girl didn't look to be even remotely convinced. "Love is love, Steve - there's no other way around it. Someone out there has to owe us some favors: we can get her some identification."

"I will not waste precious government time for such trivial matters that shouldn't even be discussed." He argued.

Elasti-Girl was exasperated at her husbands lack of desire to even consider the option. "Steve Dayton, I will not let you jeopardize our son's happiness just because of your opinionated view. You will take the time to calm down and reconsider." With that said, she turned around and stormed out of his office. Collapsing onto his chair, Mento could only conclude that her last remark almost sounded like an ultimatum.

* * *

The silence was almost overbearing. Resisting the urge to just run out the med bay doors and away from their problems was almost impossible for both of the young lovers. The only thing keeping them together in that rickety, uncomfortable medical bed was their duty to each other.

Sighing, Jinx rested her head against Beast Boy's shoulder. "Look, we can think about what we're going to do over the next few days."

"That sounds good to me..." He trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

Not a few seconds later, the girl hesitatingly spoke again. "I wanted to talk about something else."

He hoped that the next topic of discussion wasn't as daunting. "Yeah?"

Being 16 and having no experience in this particular area, she had no idea how to proceed. "Do you... Like me?"

"Of course I do, what kind of question is that?"

There wasn't particularly any other appropriate way to ask what she asked next. "I mean... You know. Sexually."

The boy started sputtering out nonsense as he began falsely coughing. "Wha- but- why- I don't even... What the hell, Jinx?"

His response wasn't entirely reassuring. Keeping in mind her lesson to not prematurely assume things, she pressed on. "Well, do you?"

Taking a few long second to form his answer, he forced himself to calm down. "Of course I do."

Not restraining her smile, she broached her reason for asking him as she began tracing affectionate lines on his thigh with her undamaged hand. "It's just, we haven't done anything since before we came here." She tried using some amount of tact to refer to their last sexual encounter.

Now he understood; but unfortunately, she didn't. "Jinx... Anything we do like that makes want to rip your clothes off and take you then and there." He admitted with no embarrassment evident in his voice.

Feeling more sure of herself, she teased him. "So why don't you?"

"You know why. Sex equals marriage for me." He sighed at the prospect of waiting that long. He didn't want to rush their relationship any further just because they were both horny teenagers.

Pausing to think about her answer for a moment, she hinted that she wasn't opposed to the idea. "You know, I won't say no if you propose to me."

But at the same time, he did want to rush their relationship because of the fact that they were indeed both horny teenagers. Horny wasn't the only suitable adjective there. Irresponsible and inexperienced were both fairly accurate as well, yet, blindingly in love is by far the most truthful way to describe their relationship.

* * *

In the living room, a floor above the med bay, the large wall mounted flat screen TV displayed a simple error message: "A controller has disconnected. Please reconnect to resume game."

Two figures sat comfortably on a very large purple couch, one leaning back with his legs up on the oaken coffee table and the other sitting with a very straight, robotic posture that involved having his own two large feet planted firmly on the lightly carpeted surface. The couch itself held a rectangular C shape and it was snugly backed up against a wall on one side of the exceedingly large room.

"CLIFF! I told you to stop breaking the controllers!" Negative Man cried out.

Throwing the crushed controller onto the ground out of sheer annoyance, Robot Man defended himself. "It's your fault for cheating!"

The practically mummified hero folded his arms as if to discredit his friends argument by action alone. "I'm cheating? You're the freakin' robot!"

Turning to face his opponent, Robot Man voiced his disagreement in that robotic monotone of his. "You're just using your freaky magic stuff."

"For the last time, Scrap Heap, that's not how it works." Negative Man said in an equally dry voice.

"I don't even know why I play these stupid video games with you." He groaned out in response.

Negative Man was about to stand up and fetch another controller, however, he halted his action as soon as he saw his favorite green nephew come in with Jinx wrapped around his dominant arm. He noticed that her right arm was dangling at her side this time. Her hand was splinted and it was clear that she was trying not to agitate it. "What's up guys?" Beast Boy called out as he sat down on the couch. Jinx gladly occupied his lap.

"Nothin' much, Tree Hugger. The ol' metal man here is making excuses for losing, as usual." Negative Man just couldn't resist antagonizing Robot Man.

As expected, the exceedingly large robot had something to say about that last statement. "You're the one that has to cheat to win!"

They started arguing again which prompted Beast Boy to gently rest his chin on his cat eyed girlfriend's shoulder as he whispered something to her. "They're just like me and Cy."

Revelling in the warmth of her partner, Jinx smirked. "I hope not."

"What do you mean?" He asked. The extra sensation he received due to the fact that she was sitting intimately in his lap and still wearing her thin leggings was both distracting and mildly stimulating.

"Well, Stone sorta tried to shoot me the last time I saw him." She said matter-of-factly. She addressed him as Stone in an attempt to voice her disdain for half man, half robot.

"Oh..."

Sensing that now was an appropriate time to change the conversation's topic, Jinx naughtily whispered back something else, letting her warm breath beat upon his ear as she spoke. "Besides, I don't know what I'd do with two Beast Boys." It was apparent from her suggestive tone that she knew exactly what she'd do.

Beast Boy's only response was to hug her tighter and sigh in contentedness. Her next sentence caught him off guard. "So, when do you want to tell them the news?"

Both Negative Man and Robot Man shared the same thought as they stopped their incessant arguing and turned their heads in sync to face the chromatically differed duo before them. "What news?" They both said at the same time, their monotonous voices mixing together to create something truly scary.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm getting tired of reporting chapters that are 100% author's notes. (I'm being fairly hypocritical about the rules here since I've already written an MA scene and I plan to write more, BUT STILL!)


	7. First Mission

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

_Jinx turned to face them with an unnerving smile on her face. Beast Boy inwardly sweat dropped as Negative Man made an O shape with his mouth as if he'd figured everything out. "You green brat, don't tell me you..."_

_"I don't know what you're talking about!" Beast Boy hurriedly tried to defend himself._

_Unfortunately for him, Negative Man wasn't thrown off his case so easily. "You did, didn't you?"_

_"I definitely don't recall propos-" He was interrupted by an ecstatic heap of walking bandages._

_"You knocked her up!" Exclaimed the elder Doom Patroller._

_"I didn't! I swear!" After speaking, his mind finally seemed to register what his team member had said. "Wait, what?"_

_Jinx suddenly frowned as Negative Man stood up and continued voicing his belief. "Don't act all innocent; you two did the nasty without any protection!"_

_Begrudgingly standing up just like Negative Man had, Jinx approached the assumption maker and started getting snappy with him. "What me and Logan have done has nothing to do with you." She aggressively pushed him back into a sitting position on the couch whilst keeping in mind not to use her splinted hand. "I am not pregnant and you need to mind your OWN. DAMN. BUSINESS." She emphasized each imperative with a rough poke to her victim's shoulder._

_Feeling like he'd just been made a monkey out of, the radioactive man took his scolding as well as the next guy. Seeing that the man in front of her wasn't about to do anything else that constituted as a stupid action, Jinx made all due haste to return to her lovers lap. "But if you must know, I'm going to be Logan's wife in a few months."_

_Even the ever impassive Robot Man had his jaw scraping along the floor after hearing what she'd said._

* * *

Recollecting the interesting events of last months shocking news as she waited for her fiancé to return from placing their order at the counter in the vegan restaurant they were in, Jinx gently played with her now most treasured possession that happened to be snugly fit around her ring finger. It was a very simple yet elegant creation. The thin band itself was composed of a sparkling platinum and at the head of the ring was an infinity symbol that had many small diamonds inlaid throughout the length of it. They actually had to get it slightly reduced in size to fit Jinx's slender finger which was quite expensive but Beast Boy didn't seem to mind.

Believe it or not, Jinx wasn't one for flashy jewellery so she thought the ring was perfect which happened to be a good thing because it was the only one that Beast Boy could offer her. It once belonged to his biological mother. Due to the importance of the ring, it would act as both her engagement and wedding ring as soon as they married which didn't look to be any time soon since they discovered after rigorous research that Jinx couldn't marry anyone since she didn't exist in the "system".

She didn't have a birth certificate, a passport, a social security number or anything that could identify her as a person. Thankfully, everyone on the team had recently started pressuring Mento to help her out with everything. There's nothing one cannot do if they have a lot of money and influence.

* * *

_The chromatically differed duo had came to the same conclusion that telling Elasti-Girl and Mento about their engagement was something that had to be done separately. Since Beast Boy wouldn't let her be the one to break the news to Mento, Jinx had been volunteered to tell Elasti-Girl._

___Finding her target walking down a hall, Jinx approached her. "Rita? Can I talk to you alone for a minute."_

___The eery smile on the mother's face was... Eery. "Of course. Let's talk in my bedroom." It was only a 10 second walk away._

___There was a small table big enough for 2 in Elasti-Girl's and Mento's room. After sitting down, the highly stretchable lady signaled for Jinx to join her. "Is it about Mento?"  
_

___"Huh?" Jinx perplexedly said. The question had definitely caught her off guard, partly because of how off track it with the idea she had in mind was but also because Jinx was busy examining the room. She'd never seen the inside of it before and other than envying how large it was, all she could say about it was that it was definitely unique.  
_

___One half of the room was filled with pictures and various colorful knick-knacks, the other half was spartan - barren of almost everything. Either Elasti-Girl and Mento had serious aesthetic design problems or they split the room in half in order to settle their differences. 'Relationships require compromise, I guess.' _

___Noticing the young girl's confusion, Mrs. Dayton attempted to explain herself. "You know - about your hand?"_

___"Oh! No, no, no. That's alright, really. It's something else." After receiving an enthusiastic nod and expecting look from Elasti-Girl, the lucky heroine continued. "Logan proposed to me."_

___It took Elasti-Girl a few seconds to process the information and during that period, she just sat there with the same exact impassive look on her face. Eventually, she went wide eyed and nearly screamed out her response. "Oh my god! What did you say?" She wasn't expecting this for another few months.  
_

___Jinx now had a strong feeling that she'd get his mother's support. "Yes."_

___Starfire's iron hugs couldn't even come close to comparing to the squeezing of a lifetime that she received that day._

* * *

Unfortunately, that was the only ring he had. Jinx had spent some alone time at a jeweler's to browse the selection of rings available, at which point she swiftly recalled that she didn't have any money at all. Taking a free ring sizer, she returned home, identified her prey and waited until bedtime to strike. After sneakily collecting her fiancé's ring size, the next day she approached her future mother in-law and in an unbelievably so-not-Jinx manner, she pitifully begged for enough money to buy a symbolic gold engagement band for Beast Boy. Of course, Elasti-Girl was more than happy to oblige her request. Money was plentiful in the Dayton family line.

Jinx looked up to see her favorite young man of all time arriving, she had no idea how he managed to look suave with a plain white t-shirt and black jeans but the blonde guy managed to pull it off. He sat across from her and carefully collected her spare hand in his own as they waited for their order to arrive. "Did I ever tell you that I'm happy about not changing your eye color with the holo ring?"

"Once or twice." She said.

Looking her straight in the eyes, he told her something she loved hearing. "Well, let me say it again. You have beautiful eyes."

Smirking, the incognito girl tried to keep a serious voice as she replied. "So do you."

"Ehm..." He didn't know how to respond to that. Sure, describing a guys eyes as being beautiful is a moderately acceptable compliment but it was still weird as hell.

"Your face is just so pretty."

"... Nicole." Definitely not helping.

She didn't stop there. "The way you sway your hips when you wal-"

Interrupting her, he couldn't stop from smiling. "Okay! Okay! You're funny, I get it."

Eventually, their meals arrived. They were just out on a date this time so they didn't order anything elaborate. Beast Boy had some macaroni and vegan cheese substitute, Jinx had a non-dairy strawberry sundae. Her boyfriend didn't mind that she had dairy products, it's just that the restaurant didn't serve any of them at all.

* * *

_Of course Beast Boy had obviously questioned her peculiar order, in response, Jinx had questioned his masculinity. "My masculinity?"_

_She blandly looked straight into his eyes. "Yeah, do you want to keep it?"_

_That look was worse than one of her signature scowls. That look was so impassive, so neutral, so uncaring, so unamused - it was scary. He refused to answer her sarcastic question as he stood up to go place their order._

* * *

The splint wrapped securely around her right hand had retarded many things for her such as eating, cuddling and hygiene processes, but it never stopped her. The only thing she couldn't do at this point was partake in team training since her leader had barred her from exerting her physical form until she'd made a complete recovery. Finishing their meal, she asked her lover the same question she'd asked thousands of times before. "When can I take this stupid thing off?"

"2 days." He lovingly said. Her frustration over such an inane thing was just plain cute to him. He'd been allowed to train with the rest of the team but neither of them had been taken on a mission yet.

"That's 2 days too long." She contemplated taking off her splint before the specified time.

"I won't let you take it off." Every time she'd taken it off out of annoyance in the past, Beast Boy had either forced her to put it back on or he'd actually caught her in the act and stopped her. It seemed that he refused to let up when it came to her health.

Under normal circumstances, it would be unheard of for Mento to let a team member slack off if they still have 3 other perfectly functioning limbs, yet these weren't normal circumstances. He'd let her off easily due in no small part to the fact that her current injury was a direct result of his own idiotic order and also because he sought to make amends.

* * *

_'I can do this... I can do this.' Beast Boy was trying to pep himself up during the walk to Mento's office. It wasn't working. 'Oh man! I can't do this. We're only 16! He's gonna freak.' Turning around and walking in the opposite direction, Beast Boy thought about his actions. 'What am I thinking? I'm scared of telling him that I want to be with her for the rest of my life?' Turning back around and now heading in the right direction, he was resolved to man up and tell his adoptive father.  
_

_Hesitatingly knocking on the office door, Mento's harsh voice could be heard almost instantly after the act was completed. "Come in."_

_The door slid itself open, allowing Beast Boy unhindered access to the wolf's den. The comparison made the green boy panic ever so slightly. 'Never fight a wolf in its den...' Wise words of wisdom rung out through his head.  
_

_Tearing his eyes away from his computer monitor, the "wolf" glanced up at Beast Boy before speaking. "If you're here to make me apologize, you should know that I intend on doing so the next time I see her." His wife's words must've gotten through to him somewhere along the line.  
_

_The tone in which he said "her" was a little unsavory. "She has a name. It's Jinx."_

_"I guess it is. Is there anything else?" Mento bluntly said.  
_

_Noticing the purple hued bruise on Mento's jawline, he decided to address that issue first. "I guess I wanna apologize for hitting you."_

_Beast Boy noticed his leader's form relaxing ever so slightly as he responded. "It's alright." As much as he hated to admit it... "I deserved it."_

_Feeling that nothing else could be said on the matter, Beast Boy changed the topic of conversation so that he could probe the waters, so to speak, before revealing his true motive "Hey... Dad. Listen." Calling Mento his father felt unnatural but he persevered. "Do you like Jinx?"_

_"She's a confident individual with a lot of experience. Once she heals and we incorporate her into our team play, she'll make for a valua-" He was cut off by the changeling.  
_

_"No, I mean; do you think she's a good person?" Mento could be unbearably leader-like sometimes.  
_

_Mento took a second to consider his answer. "... I don't know."_

_"Well, I think you should find out for yourself because we're engaged."_

_Mento's response was instantaneous. Sighing, the telepath made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Leave me. I need to think."_

* * *

Everyone had noticed that Mento had started going out of his way to start conversations with Jinx. Conversations about everything ranging from battle stratagems, super hero politics, government politics, psyche profiles for both heroes and villains alike... You get the gist of it. It was as close to real interpersonal conversations that Jinx was ever going to have with the man and she appreciated the effort.

The chromatically differed duo had been taking a secret back entrance through an abandoned building into the base for quite a while now since just going in by the front door every day would sort of give them away. Thankfully, the elevator didn't have music from the 80's playing since it was a fairly recent addition to the Doom Patrol headquarters.

Running through the fingerprint and retinal scanners during the short elevator down into the base, the computerized and distinctly feminine voice announced their arrival. "Welcome Jinx, Doom Patrol member zero-zero-six."

Negative Man was there to greet them. "Hey kids, perfect timing. Our bug masked leader made a breakthrough on the General Zahl case. He wants us all in the conference room ASAP."

* * *

It was hard restraining her laugh when she came in the room, but Jinx managed to do so. Elasti-Girl and Robot Man had already taken their seats at the long rectangular table, Negative Man, Beast Boy and herself promptly joined them. A large screen of suitable size for a classroom project was a few meters away from the head of the table and Mento was right next to with an old fashioned pointer stick in hand.

Somehow sensing her amusement, Beast Boy leaned over and quietly cautioned Jinx just as Mento started speaking. "Trust me, you don't want to laugh."

"... world-class scientist named Macy Dawn..."

Tuning out Mento's drawling presentation, she responded in kind. "Why?"

"... degree in microbiology..."

"Cus he's all serious about these things." Beast Boy said.

"... kidnapped by General Zahl..."

It made sense. "Has he always been like this?"

"... private island in the Caribbean..."

That was an interesting question with an interesting answer. "I don't think so but it's kind of a long story."

"... most certainly a trap..."

She figured that they had time. "And this is kind of a long presentation."

Beast Boy opened his mouth to respond but Mento's thundering voice snapped both youngsters out of their hushed conversation. "BEAST BOY!"

He turned to face his leader with a guilty facial expression. "Y-yes?" The shape shifter barely managed to sputter out his response.

"I hope you were paying attention." His voice was admonishing.

Knowing full well that he'd been caught, Beast Boy made a blatant lie. "Dude, I totally was."

"Good, because you and Jinx are coming with us. We'll need all the help we can get - General Zahl wouldn't have anticipated either of you. We leave at 05:00 tomorrow."

It would be a lie to say that the green or pale skinned heroes missed the adrenaline rush of going into battle. The thrill and exhilaration it provided was important for both of them. A chance to let loose... A chance to take off her splint a day early... Jinx was looking forward to it already. Unfortunately, Beast Boy was dreading the effort it would take to crawl out of bed before 5 AM.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm finding it harder and harder to stop myself from injecting Internet humor (memes, immature jokes, etc) into my work. I blame it on Obama.


	8. It's a Trap!

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

The Doom Patrol's jet was a very sleek looking machine thanks in no small part to its white metaled exterior and its clear cut aerodynamic design. At the head of the jet was the cabin that held 3 operator seats, 2 of which were occupied by Mento and Elasti-Girl. The rest of the team were back in the seating area. The interior itself was more than spacious enough to walk around without difficulty and small, moderately comfortable seats lined both sides of the aircraft, each seat had safety belts that hooked up in a cross shape in order to help ensure passenger safety.

Seeing as though she couldn't occupy Beast Boy's lap for safety reasons, Jinx chose the next best thing and sat next to him which allowed her to rest her head on his shoulder. They came to a silent agreement to hold hands during the 3 hour long flight. Negative Man sat across from the young couple and Robot Man stood towards the back of the jet for the entirety of the flight, his hands were gripped on the support bars along the ceiling so there was no way he was going to fly about in the seating area if they were to come across a bout of turbulence.

The pink haired teenager felt a little out of place in her traditional villain/heroine outfit, albeit slightly altered in the footwear department because sneakers are simply a lot more practical than heeled boots. She comforted herself in the notion that the overall purple design of her witch-like outfit complimented the others Doom Patrol uniforms quite well.

Noticing that Beast Boy was being a little too quiet, Negative Man probed to find out what was wrong. "You're not still mad that your little girlfriend beat you at Monkey Racers 2 the other day?"

His ears twitched after hearing what his uncle had said but Jinx chose to speak before he could. "Don't you remember? He let me win." She mockingly said. Everyone knew that the grass stain was lucky to have a girlfriend that not only enjoyed gaming but was also awesome at it.

Not feeling the need to defend himself in any way, the green teen answered the indirect question. "Something just feels a little off." He might've mentioned something about the calm before the storm if it wasn't an overtly cliché line.

"Stick to the plan and you'll be fine, kiddo." Robot Man's gruff voice could be heard from the back.

"Yeah, yeah - change into something small and keep out of sight until I'm needed. I remember." He didn't like being the secret trump card even if it made tactical sense.

Picking up on his upset tone, Jinx tried to comfort him. "Logan, I'll be fine. I'm a tough girl." She knew that he was worrying about her. He's always been overly protective which was indeed something she loved about him. It shows that he really cares about her which is especially important in her own eyes because no one else had ever done the same.

"I know. It's just that I'd feel a lot be-"

Before the anxious boy could finish his sentence, Mento emerged from the cockpit and addressed the rest of the team as he held onto a metal support to maintain his balance. "Doom Patrol, ETA 5 minutes to landing site. From the intel I've gathered, there are no external defense systems so it should be a smooth landing. The base is hidden underground with an access point inland a ways in the dense jungle thicket. We'll be moving single file with me on point. When we land, Beast Boy, you need to stick to small forms and stay hidden nearby until I say otherwise. Any questions?"

"If it's underground, how's Elasti-Girl gonna help out?" Negative Man asked in his normal monotone. If Elasti-Girl came into the confines of the tight corridors and rooms of the base only to enlarge herself when she had to assist the team, it'd collapse the ceiling around them and cause the inflow of enormous amounts of dirt to flood in and crush them.

"Let's just hope there's enough space for her to help out." Stated the masked leader.

* * *

Green and brown were the only distinguishable colors in the thickly veiled jungle. Jinx may have even noticed the lively chirping of birds and cricketing of many different insects or even the small amount of light peering through the many cracks in the canopy to provide an incredibly surreal view but she was far too busy trying to manage her footsteps through the unmanageable underbrush to take notice.

A thin layer of sweat coated her forehead as she trudged through the thick shrubbery in an attempt to keep up with the radioactive Doom Patroller ahead of her. It seems the city girl either wasn't suited towards this sort of this thing or she was merely inexperienced. Taking another step, Jinx found out only too late that her foot was snagged on something. Landing face first on the ground, she found the taste of dirt to be disagreeable as she gasped for breath in an attempt to recover the oxygen she'd lost due to the winding she'd received from the unexpected impact.

Elasti-Girl approached Jinx from behind and helped her up as she proceeded to get over her mild coughing fit. "Careful, Jinx. Mento doesn't wait up for stragglers. Lift your feet high and step before you lean."

Nodding in response to her future mother in-law as she tried to banish any thoughts of embarrassment, Jinx began trekking onwards once more before the acting rearguard, Robot Man, caught up to them.

In the form of one of the many different types of bumblebees, Beast Boy unnervingly watched his girlfriend trip over an outward tree root. Normally he wouldn't have hesitated to step in and help her up but now he found it difficult to stop himself from doing so.

Seeing that she was okay, he returned his focus to examining her ever enrapturing hair and eyes. In this form he had a slightly differed color spectrum so he was capable of seeing a multitude of different ultraviolet colors. To him, both of the aforementioned aspects of her appearance were slightly darker yet seemingly lighter at the same time... It was just extremely vivid in his eyes, especially given the current environment both of them were in where pink was just about the most uncommon color.

A particularly strong vibration forced the green bee out of its reverie. He watched Jinx dashing forward, soon to be followed by Elasti-Girl and Robot Man. Setting his sights ahead, he looked just in time to see Negative Man send his soul-self out towards their unidentified foe.

Dragging Negative Man's inactive body to cover behind a large tree, Mento started barking orders out to his team. "Doom Patrol, take cover! Robot Man, help Negative Man!"

Flying drones with machine guns proceeded to hail lead upon the exposed and vulnerable Doom Patrol as Robot Man assisted Negative Man in taking their numerous foes down. In a matter of seconds, the spraying bullets stopped chipping away at the aged bark of the trees and Robot Man sounded the all clear.

Being the first to emerge from the cover, Mento examined the destroyed drones. "Standard military grade drones rigged with a camera input and some sort of IFF tech. Likely a patrol group. If he didn't know we were here already, Zahl definitely knows now. Doom Patrol - let's double time it!"

Stepping out from behind the tree she'd used as cover, with an unwarranted smile, Jinx could only remark that she missed the sensation of being shot at.

* * *

Just under 10 minutes later, the team arrived at the entrance to the supposed base. Thanks to the clearing around it, a large reinforced steel door could be clearly made out upon the base of a small plateau. Mento wasted no time in ordering Robot Man to deal with it. "Robot Man, get us inside."

Feeling a little off about how much of a breeze it was to reach the base, Negative Man spoke up. "Doesn't this feel a little too easy to you guys?"

"It's almost like we're expected to just tear open the door and go waltzing into his secret lair." Jinx jokingly answered.

Wordlessly, the metal man walked up to the door and ripped it off its hinges. Before the door could be lifted away and tossed aside, a red pulse emitted from just behind it sending Robot Man stumbling onto his back with the door he held in his hands landing on top of his bulky form. The pulse sped past the entirety of the team before dispersing no more than 20 feet away.

"CLIFF!" Negative Man came running to his buddies aid, he attempted to push the door off the downed Doom Patroller but couldn't manage until Mento came to help him.

"I can't move my legs. I can't move anything!" Robot Man called out from the floor.

"C'mon man, don't joke around like that." His best friend exclaimed.

"I'm serious! That red wave must've done something to my movements motors!"

Mento turned his gaze to the source of the red blast. Just beyond the entryway a small, black, spire shaped object could be identified. Smoke plumed from the device that stretched along the ceiling until it escaped through the entryway itself and rose up into the fresh air of the jungle. In the center of the contraption, a cylinder that looked like it would easily fit into ones hand could be seen. It was a quarter full of some sort of red substance that was leaking out of a crack in the glass and onto the ground.

The red substance peaked Beast Boy's curiosity because it looked oddly familiar. _'Sorta looks like Xenothium... How did Zahl get his hands on this kind of tech?'_ The green teen mused.

"What ever it is," Mento called out, "it looks like it fried itself after firing."

Somehow Robot Man's voice sounded determined. "Go on in without me guys, I'm not going anywhere."

Nodding, Mento responded in the same stoic voice that he'd maintained throughout the encounter. "You heard him. We can't stop now. Doom Patrol, move out."

If you'd have looked closely enough, you might've been able to make out a miniscule green speck following the 4 heroes into the unknown depths of the base.

* * *

Navigating many sparsely lit corridors, the team came upon no resistance what so ever as Mento expertly lead them to their goal. Eventually, they arrived at one particularly long and dark corridor with a large door at the end. "I'll see if there are any more traps."

With a short moment of a concentration, Mento gathered his thoughts on unleashing a wave of psionic energy down the corridor in order to destroy any false panels and what mechanical traps lay behind them. The only issue with that is that nothing happened. The telepath found that he couldn't call upon his powers. "What? I can't..." He brought his hand up to rest his index and middle finger on the side of his helmet before trying again. Nothing. "That red pulse must've messed with my helmet, it's useless. Jinx - you take care of it."

"With pleasure." Jinx brought her hands together with great force and sent a massive shock wave of her pink energy straight down the corridor. The results were clear as small turrets were pushed out of their hiding positions and sparked with electrical energy to signify that they were all now defunct.

"Nice work, girly." Negative Man congratulated her.

Mento didn't let her dwell in praise for long. "Deal with that door and let's finish this."

Jinx snapped her fingers for bad luck and focused on the locking mechanism of the door. With a bright spark of pink energy, the keypad fizzled as smoke came rushing out of it and the large reinforced door slowly slid open followed by the remaining members of the Doom Patrol who rushed in.

The entirety of the extremely large room was bathed in an unnatural darkness with the only illuminated area being where a single spot light shone onto - it was shining on a slightly elevated stage that even had a small pedestal.

Slowly but surely, a figured walked into the light on the stage and made his presence known. It was General Zahl himself. His signature style consisting of a long green trench coat, a Nazi military hat decorated with a golden finish and that infernal glass monocle over one of his eyes told everyone that he was the one and only. Some sort of metallic contraption could be seen encompassing his neck. Jinx could only conclude that it looked like a neck brace. With his grand and melodramatic entrance made, the rest of the lights switched on to reveal the rest of the room.

One minor detail that would threaten any plans the Doom Patrol had was what General Zahl had in his grasp. In one hand was a fully loaded Luger pistol and in the other was the arm of an adult woman in a white lab coat. She matched the description of one Macy Dawn.

Just like Robin had done countless times, Mento gritted his teeth and growled out the villains name. "ZAHL!"

"Ahhh, Herr Mento. Ist unt pleasure to see you on such short notice." His thick German accent voiced his clear distaste for the English language.

"It's over, Zahl. Surrender the hostage or-" Before going further, General Zahl interrupted the masked leader.

"Or what? You will break me again? But der game ist not yet over und you haf no idea how truly outmatched you are." The former Nazi soldier responded in a tone that reeked of superiority.

"Enough monologuing, this ends now."

General Zahl let loose a harsh, cackling laugh in response to his foes confidence. "Just as she predicted... Und now we shall haf our revenge."

_'Just as she predicted? We? Who is he talking about?'_ Beast Boy was a little worried at this point.

Pointing towards the villain, Mento ordered his team to engage despite the fact they were practically 2 men down. "Doom Patrol, attack!"

In response, General Zahl lowered the hilt of his gun and hit a switch on the podium with it.

Dashing forward, Elasti-Girl grew as large as possible before hitting the ceiling which enabled her to grow to the staggering height of 25 feet. Jinx was right behind her, using the enlarged woman as cover whilst she agilely handspringed out of the way of incoming fire and tossed hexes at the multitude of armed, metallic, skeletal robots that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Before they could even fire a single shot from their automatic guns, dozens of robots burst into various states of dysfunctionality as a direct result of the unlucky girl's effective attacks.

All of the remaining robots concentrated their fire on Elasti-Girl but due to the thick skin she had in such a sizable form, she shrugged the bullets off with ease as she drilled forward and systematically worked on destroying everyone of them with the assistance of Jinx.

Hanging back, Mento was waiting for the final member of his team to join the fray. Without looking back, he called for him. "Negative Man! Get in there!" Looking back to check on his teammate, he discovered what was wrong.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I keep pressing CTRL + S out of reflex but I write all of my material in this websites doc manager so it doesn't quite work like that. It's annoying.


	9. Catfight

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

"So ze hero orphanage is taking in more children now? How VERY unexpected."

Jinx stopped in her tracks. She'd know that voice from anywhere. She turned around just in time to see Mento's unconscious form being tossed aside by... Robot Man? Negative Man was right behind him in a similar state.

Robot Man suddenly shifted into a female form that Jinx recognized straight away. "Vhat a disappointment you are, child."

Glancing to her left and then to her right, Jinx confirmed that Beast Boy hadn't revealed himself yet. Good. "I have a bone to pick with you, Rouge."

Madame Rouge laughed at the pale girls bravado. "I admit zat I did not expect you to be helping ze Doom Patrol. Did ze Teen Titans finally see how much of a traitor you truly are?"

Slowly walking towards her opponent, Jinx decided that Elasti-Girl could deal with General Zahl and his minions on her own. "I don't know why you're helping that old man but you're going to pay for it."

* * *

Crushing the final robotic soldier, Elasti-Girl remained enlarged as she turned to confront General Zahl who was still on the stage. "Ahh... Robots can never replace real flesh und blut. Unfortunately, not many people want to work for an old sailor these days."

_'An old sailor? He's a damnable Nazi.'_ The size changing heroine didn't have the patience to listen to her foe's excuses. "Give it up, Zahl. You lose."

"You forget that ich bin the one with the hostage und the gun." His cocky tone was ever-present.

Elasti-Girl began lifting one of her gargantuan feet to make a move on the villain.

He brought the gun to his hostage's head and wrapped his other arm tightly around her neck. "Ah-ah-ah, not so fast."

Elasti-Girl was left with no other choice but to stand back.

"Gut frau. If we had more like you back during the Third Reich then we may have even won." General Zahl enjoyed monologuing way too much. "This attraktiv woman here is much like you. With a little..." He creepily brought he mouth closer to her neck and glided his tongue along it for maximum effect. "... Encouragement, I was able to get her to do what ever I wanted. Isn't this right, Professor Dawn?"

The hostage struggled against her captor but to no avail. She couldn't scream thanks to the gag in her mouth.

"What did you make her do?" Elasti-Girl damn well demanded out of fear for the professors psychological well being. She could vaguely hear grunting in the background but she cast it aside to focus on any way to bring down General Zahl.

Cackling just like he had before, he gave the heroine an obscure answer. "Oh you know, a little bit of this und a little bit of that with a few surprises mixed in. Der end result is quite extraordinary, I assure you. I regret that I'm unable to tell you anything else, for you see, es ist time for you to change back to your normal size before I blow a hole in this pretty girls brain."

Left with little other choice, Elasti-Girl submitted and returned to her normal size. The sadistic smile on his face indicated that the villain was clearly pleased. "Gut. This won't hurt a bit." He turned the gun on Elasti-Girl and pulled the trigger.

* * *

"Get back here, you vittl- OOF!" Madame Rouge definitely wasn't expecting to be kicked in the face like that.

Jinx would've laughed at the poor shape changer if she wasn't busy dodging fists that moved at the speed of bullets. "Catch me if you can!"

Returning to her tactic of slowly approaching the unlucky girl and extending her arms in order to use her fists as projectiles, Madame Rouge screamed out her response, the annoyance was evident in her tone. "You foolish girl, I shall destroy you!"

"Not like that you won't." The pink haired girl somersaulted over another fist heading her way. She wasn't able to close the distance between her and Rouge anymore, it was too difficult. She had to play on the defensive until an opening came up.

Madame Rouge merely smirked in response. "You vill tire eventually!"

Jinx definitely didn't find her old role model to be intimidating anymore. _'It's always the same with her; taunt them to distract, tire them out and then go in for the kill. Well, it's not gonna work on me.'_ Sliding under another opposing fist, she brought her hands together and sent a shock wave of pink energy towards Madame Rouge. The ground cracked and gave way as it pulled the villain into the itself and kept her locked there from the waist and below.

Recalling the last time Jinx had done that to be during the Brotherhood of Evil's downfall, the stretchable villain laughed it off. "You think zis vill work again? You are sadly mistaken." Her response was merely to continue launching her fists at Jinx. Slowly but surely, the French villain changed her legs' shape to fit through the cracks and then she reformed them above ground so that she could stand.

Truth be told, Jinx wasn't trying to trap her opponent like before. She was looking for something. _'C'mon, there's always some redundant pipe around to save the day...'_ Distracted momentarily, Jinx found herself on the receiving end of one of Madame Rouge's punches which she quickly recovered from as she used the momentum to perform a back handspring. Rather unexpectedly, the pale girl's back collided with a wall as she came out of the handspring.

From her view, she could see her enemy running at her with incredible speed in the hopes of crushing her against the wall like to make a Jinx sandwich. Haphazardly regaining her wits just in time, Jinx clumsily rolled out of the way which meant Madame Rouge came crashing into the wall without any human padding. Seeing that the French woman was now dazed, she went on the offensive once again and launched another hex towards the villain. This time, a small pipe broke through ever so slightly from the cracks in the wall that Madame Rouge had made and sprayed her body with a steady stream of boiling steam.

Jinx watched Rouge fall to the floor briefly in pain before going in for a good ol' curb stomp only for it to be dodged when Madame Rouge rolled away. Following up as quickly as possible, Jinx jumped for the chance to bring her fist to the recovering woman's jaw which she succeeded to do.

Flying back to meet the floor, Rouge huffed in annoyance. The steam had slowed her abilities ever so slightly, giving Jinx the edge she needed to land a few blows of her own. _'Zis girl would have been an excellent master villainess. Too bad.' _Both of the combatants knew that something a lot hotter than a little bit of steam would be needed to stop the infamous Madame Rouge.

Once again seizing the opportunity, Jinx aimed a hex at one of the partially destroy robots that lay right next to Madame Rouge. The resultant explosion sent the target flying once more onto her stomach. "I didn't know you were so good at ping pong." Jinx taunted her as she stood up.

Finally bringing herself to her feet, it was clear from the scorch marks on the shape changer's body that the last blow had done some damage. It took her a few seconds to reform herself completely. When she did, her wounds were as good as gone. "Is that all you've got? Vittle. Girl."

Before the two forces could collide in battle once again, an ear-piercing scream dragged their shared attention to the stage.

* * *

When the gun was turned onto his adoptive mother, Beast Boy knew then and there that he should've jumped in sooner. Thankfully, he arrived in the nick of time to redirect the shot towards the ground. Maintaining his grip on the ex-Nazi's wrist, he brought his other fist upwards with tremendous force - enough force to nearly snap General Zahl's arm in two. Now free, the hostage proceeded to run towards Elasti-Girl for cover.

"NEVER. AIM. A GUN. AT MY MOTHER!" Beast Boy roared out at General Zahl, the deepened tone in his voice shocking all that'd heard. Twisting his severely dislocated arm; the fearless sailor screamed out in pain once more. Deciding to be somewhat merciful, Beast Boy sent his fist towards General Zahl's face, instantly knocking him out cold before he even hit the floor.

Elasti-Girl was still in hero mode and didn't waste any time marveling in her son's aggressiveness, instead, she looked down to see what the gun had actually fired seeing as though it didn't make a loud bang as expected when it did fire. A dart was lodged thoroughly into the wooden floor of the stage. _'Is that some sort of sedative?'_

* * *

"Oh my... Ze green one has grown." Madame Rouge remarked with a small undertone of awe.

That didn't sit well with Jinx. "He's MINE!" She glared daggers at the woman who had just shown interest in her boyfriend. It was nearly impossible to stop herself from pointing at the highly visible brand on her neck as if to emphasize the point.

The glaring didn't phase the red clad evildoer in the least. "So you two are together? Then I shall let you vatch as I smother ze life out of him!" She didn't pause as a black handheld cylindrical device formed out of her hand. There was a menacing red button at the top of it. "I do not zink you vill like what zis does."

Jinx didn't have enough time to stop the villain from pressing the button, but fortunately, she didn't have to. Before anyone knew it, Beast Boy came crashing into Madame Rouge in the form of a very green, yet very fast cougar. The switch went flying out of Madame Rouge's hand to the other side of the room only to be lost in amongst the scores of destroyed robotic henchmen. Rouge, on the other hand, went flying back to the ground which was definitely something she wasn't at all accustomed to.

"Where's Elasti-Girl?" Jinx tersely questioned. Seeing as though he was now in his human form, she used the rest of the time she had to run over and kiss her boyfriend's cheek.

"She's dealing with a computer thingy in the back that I couldn't make sense of. I think we can take Rouge together, don't you?" He responded in a somewhat playful tone. The acknowledging smirk on her face told him everything he needed to know.

Standing back up, the outnumbered villain had something to say about that. "You puny mongrel, I vill end you if it is ze last thing I do."

Despite his heightened reflexes, Beast Boy didn't have time to do much of anything as Madame Rouge leapt at him with surprising speed. She swiftly crossed the exceedingly long distance between them and encased his body entirely with her own. Not a speck of the emerald eyed boy could be seen - only red and black.

Now worried, Jinx let his last name slip as she came running over to the two. "Logan!"

Before she could get within a distance where she could initiate physical contact, a red tentacle protruded from the blob that encased Beast Boy and smacked Jinx aside, sending her stumbling off balance a good 10 feet away. Quickly reorienting herself, Jinx tried to figure out a way to help her beloved. _'I can't do a thing without hurting him... He's suffocating in there! Think, Jinx, think!'_ Panic began setting in.

Beast Boy himself was now struggling to escape out of his enemies hold on him. Every time he morphed into a different animal, be it an elephant or a turtle, Madame Rouge's form would adjust in size to "accommodate" for the sudden change. He couldn't yell anything out and he had great trouble even moving his arm in the slightest. He could feel his strength waning as he tried to gasp for air.

Jinx noticed that his movements were starting to die down as she frantically looked for a way to get Madame Rouge off of her boyfriend. Not knowing if Madame Rouge could actually hear her, she called for out for mercy as tears began stinging her eyes. "N-no! Please! You win! Let him go!" The massive red blob didn't respond in anyway.

Feeling his muscles tire and ache from the lack of oxygen, he tried with all his might to claw his way out of the situation but none of his animal forms had the necessary strength to do so - not even his favored Smilodon populator (the largest kind of saber-toothed cat) could do the job. Left with no other choice, the defeated hero rather unwillingly resigned to his demise. He could only bring himself to regret that he wasn't strong enough. Jinx quite literally needed him in her life for any sense of stability and now he'd failed her._  
_

In all honesty, he expected his final living moments to be filled with the events of his own life flashing before his minds eye, yet the only thing he could now seem to recall was a still memory of Jinx's face with her beautiful orb-like eyes standing out from the rest of her features.

Slowly but surely, the borders of the memory grew dark and gradually moved on to consume the rest of her pale but flawless face with a void-like nothingness until all but her luminous pink eyes could be seen.

For whatever strange reason, the color of her iris' changed to a bright green before they quickly grew outwards and consumed the blackened void of the image with even more of the dazzling yet familiar energy-like brilliance.

His view was abruptly tugged towards her slitted pupils - he found that he couldn't pull away in the slightest as they seemingly expanded and encompassed everything in his vision almost as if he'd walked through a doorway into a darkened room. His vision was now obscured by another wall of black as the last of his consciousness had finally slipped away.

* * *

Elasti-Girl had quickly led the microbiologist towards the backroom that Beast Boy had told her about mere seconds ago before he rushed off to help his fiancée. Navigating towards the room itself was tricky thanks to the odd number of inoperable robot's littering the floor around them. It was apparent that the young changeling must've absconded away from the rest of the team and dealt with the numerous guards himself before ripping the nondescript iron door off of its hinges to check out what lay behind.

Furiously typing away on a computer terminal in the room, Elasti-Girl was attempting to figure out what General Zahl was up to. She was having little luck bypassing their security protocols without the assistance of any specialized equipment which was unfortunately all stored away in the jet they arrived in.

Seeing the look of frustration on the heroine's face, the hostage who'd thus far stuck with her attempted to get her attention by trying to speak only for her efforts to be halted as a low mumbling sound came reverberating out of her throat thanks in no small part to the fact that her mouth was still gagged and on top of that; her hands were bound. "Mmmh!"

"Not now, professor. I'm busy." Elasti-Girl deadpanned, although a hint of annoyance could be detected in her response.

Professor Dawn tried again. "Mmmmmmh!"

That got Elasti-Girl's attention. She swiftly turned around to face the semi-freed girl. "What?"

"Mmmh."

"Oh! Let me help you with that." She reached over and slid the gag out of the woman's mouth, the rest of the silencing device soon followed as it slid over her head and went flying towards the ground.

Grateful, the ex-hostage spoke out in a rush of words that were coated with a thick Brooklyn accent. "Free my hands so I can stop the bioweapon!"

Elasti-Girl was quick to comply with the request after hearing the mention of a biological weapon.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I just laugh for no reason whenever I read Zahl's or Rouge's lines. I read them out loud with the accents for maximum effect! And, uhh... This has definitely been my latest update ever (10 days). Cool fact, huh?


	10. Assistance

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

Standing watch by the doorway was all Elasti-Girl found she could do as the knowledgeable professor broke into the systems she was ever so familiar with and attempted to remotely disarm what ever biological weapon she was forced to design. The room aptly fitted the description of a small one man operating center. It wasn't too large as a number of computer terminals lined the walls with small server racks holding vital equipment next to them. No chairs were present and the walls distinctly lacked any sort of adornments. Matching the same theme of dark and mysterious that the rest of the underground base had, the walls were inconspicuously dark and the lights were almost equally dim.

The glorified bodyguard couldn't help but glance over at the computer terminal that the scientist was working on. _'Codsville, New England? Is that where the weapon is?'_

Apparently reading her thoughts, the professor answered with little pause. "Yes it is, Mrs. Dayton."

Elasti-Girl gathered 3 things from that response. One being that the weapon was indeed located in some generic place named Codsville, two being that she accidentally spoke her thoughts and three... "My name is Elasti-Girl whilst on duty, thank you, **Macy**." The heroine didn't bother defending her supposedly secret identity but instead emphasized the scientists first name out of annoyance.

Professor Dawn merely smiled as she continued glaring at the screen in front of her. "Then I insist you call me Professor Dawn." She retorted.

After a brief moment of conversational silence, it was obvious that Elasti-Girl had intended to ask what was going on so the kind professor answered the unspoken question. "I was forced to genetically modify a strain of sepcilis bacterium so that it could absorb trace amounts of Xenothium. Once absorbed, the unstable Xenothium would eventually break down its cell structure, causing the bacteria to die."

She paused for breathe before continuing. "Right now I'm trying to remotely disable the arming mechanism to the device that will automatically fuse the two together and then disperse the result in..." She paused to look at the timer at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. "11 minutes, 36 seconds." Not at one point did she stop rapping against the keys upon the keyboard during her brief explanation.

"Sepcilis? I've never heard of that before." Elasti-Girl inquired out of interest.

"It's an artificial bacterium that can only reproduce under very specific and almost artificial conditions. It also happens to be extremely fatal towards humans if not treated. There is no latency period and it kills faster than Ebola but it's thankfully easy to treat." There didn't seem to be any hint of relief in the scientist's voice.

Mixing a highly unstable compound with the bacteria seemed to be a bad idea, at least, it seemed that way to Elasti-Girl. "Wouldn't fusing sepcilis with Xenothium be counterproductive?"

"It ensures that the bacteria are destroyed after the job is done and it enhances its lethal effects tenfold. With the Xenothium, the bacteria are like airborne termites - they work their way through the bloodstream whilst destroying everything along the way." Professor Dawn attempted to sound nonchalant about the entire thing but she failed miserably thanks to the grim undertone she subconsciously maintained throughout her explanation.

Elasti-Girl could only come to the conclusion that being burned inside out by seemingly invisible fire would be a painful way to go.

* * *

Jinx watched in horror as Beast Boy's movements finally came to a standstill. Left with no other option than to risk it, she brought her hands up in preparation of launching multiple hexes at the number of robotic corpses that lay near the red form of Madame Rouge who still happened to be enshrouding her beloved in an airtight environment with her very own body.

Oddly enough, Jinx didn't have to do anything.

Someone else beat her to it.

Multiple green orbs of energy went flying past Jinx from behind and collided with Rouge. The explosion sent Jinx falling backwards onto her rear as she hurried to cover her eyes from the intensity of air rushing past her as a result of the explosion itself.

Jinx opened her eyes only to see... Starfire? Brilliant green eyes, fiery red hair, distinctly cropped eyebrows, revealing purple uniform. It was Starfire alright.

"Friend Jinx, are you unharmed?" The ever caring alien asked as she reached a hand out to help Jinx stand up.

Grasping her friend's hand and coming to stand on her own two feet, the unlucky girl nodded out of reflex. "Star? What are you..." She trailed off mid sentence as she spotted a familiar green somebody unmoving on the ground right beyond the view of Starfire's shoulder. "Logan!" As she called his name she ran past Starfire to reach Beast Boy's side.

Dropping to her knees right next to him, she cradled his head in her lap as she leaned down and checked to see if he was breathing and for his pulse at the same time. Feeling a pulse but not feeling, seeing or hearing him breathing made her heart ache. Tears began silently falling down her pale cheeks as she slipped into action and shifted slightly so that she could perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Pinching his nose, she went straight to it and brought her mouth to his. Exhale. Head up, inhale, check for breathing. His chest had already rose and was now falling back down which was a good sign. She repeated the process again. And again. And ag- Beast Boy started sputtering and coughing to consciousness as Jinx lifted her head away from him.

He only had a few seconds to catch his breath before Jinx wordlessly shifted herself once more and began straddling him as she brought her head back down and greedily kissed him for all he was worth. She made sure to savor both his slightly musky scent and his taste before pulling back with a dopey smile on her face. Naturally, Beast Boy was panting quite heavily after that as he tried to regain his breath.

* * *

The computer terminal beeped for a split second before the professor banged a fist on the keyboard out of anger. Professor Dawn voiced her frustration with a single word. "Damnit!"

"What's wrong?" A certain Doom Patroller asked as she stopped tapping her foot impatiently.

Rubbing the bridge of her nose, the professor answered her flatly. "It's not responding at all. They must've sabotaged the transceiver."

The bioweapon was going to go off and a whole lot of people were going to die. They were on some obscure Caribbean island in the middle of nowhere and there was no way they could get to Codsville in time because it was all the way in New England - the most northeastern state of the U.S. mainland.

"Try it again!" Elasti-Girl knew that it was hopeless but she tried to sound determined anyway.

The professor complied and entered in the access code only for the computer to beep in response once more.

* * *

And so the dynamically differed duo were laying there in the middle of a inactive battlefield whilst locked in an intimate cowgirl position as Jinx began lovingly caressing her partner's face after she gave him a once over to check for any injuries. Her chest was practically resting entirely on his as she softly nuzzled his nose with hers. "Are you okay? I thought I lost you."

Smiling at seeing the love of his life being so protective, he brought a hand up to gently brush away one of her stray tears before worming his way back a little, at which point he sat up which of course forced her to sit up as well. Bringing his face close to her once more, he spoke in an alluring tone. "I am now that you're here."

As usual; a floating Starfire spoiled the touching moment right before Jinx could lean in for another passionate kiss but this time it wasn't in the usual manner. Beast Boy had looked right behind Jinx to see Starfire... Patrolling? He pulled away to observe Starfire's actions. She was scanning all around with her eyes as she slowly flew around him and his partner. It was like she was expecting something or someone to attack at any moment.

Jinx noticed her beau's action and turned her head enough to see what all the fuss was about. Looking up and carefully analyzing the orange girl's features, she caught sight of what she missed the first time around when she was dazed from the explosion. It was clear that Starfire had seen some battle recently. Her stance was lazed and tired plus she looked a little bruised but all in all she appeared to be in good condition.

Standing up with the somewhat unnecessary but delightfully clingy assistance of Jinx, Beast Boy greeted his old friend as his mindset switched from hopelessly romantic to tentatively alert. "Hey, Star. How have you been doing?" He hardly noticed that Jinx had failed to release his arm from her grip.

Suspiciously, the warrior princess delayed her response as she returned her own two feet to the ground and turned to face her questioner. "I have been faring... Sufficiently." Her tone wasn't one of confidence. "I am pleased to see both you and friend Jinx are unharmed. I regret having to damage you in order to free you from Madame Rouge but I am pleased to report that she has retreated." Even then her usual lively tone was subdued.

_'No hugging? No cheerful attitude? What happened to her?'_ Even if the most noticeable changes in Starfire's demeanor affected a few annoying things about her, Beast Boy didn't necessarily find said changes to be agreeable at all. Jokingly rubbing his head and giving his sort-of-sister a smile of appreciation, he spoke. "You had a good reason for giving me this killer headache so it's okay."

It appeared that Jinx's mind was set more so on business than on what was wrong with Starfire at the moment. "I'd love to stand around and play catch up but Mento and Negative Man are down and I have no idea where Elasti-Girl is." She demurely looked towards her beau for approval which was something that seemed to be happening more and more often. The Doom Patrol had a strict chain of command but Beast Boy had a strong feeling that Jinx wasn't waiting for his order just because she was at the bottom of that chain.

"Elasti-Girl should be with that scientist lady in the control center I found in the back past Zahl. You two go and check on them, I'll check on those two." He pointed at the unconscious bodies of Negative Man and Mento that laid relatively nearby.

With nothing but an abrupt surprise kiss and a brief "I love you", Jinx released his arm and followed his request by leading Starfire onto the stage and past a certain incapacitated old man with a badly disfigured arm who happened to be a few steps beyond being a mere Nazi activist.

* * *

"Elasti-Girl?" A familiar voice called out from the doorway.

Only years of experience prevented the woman in question from jumping in shock. She was so distracted in seeing what the good professor was doing that she had stopped watching the doorway a long time ago.

Professor Dawn snorted in amusement as she watched Elasti-Girl tense up. It was kind of hard not to see the experienced heroine do so since she was practically hovering over the professor as she typed away in an attempt to somehow get through to the transceiver of the arming mechanism. "Weren't you supposed to be watching my back?"

Disregarding that last remark, Elasti-Girl turned around and addressed Jinx. "I trust that you two dealt with... Starfire? What are you doing here?"

"The goodest of days to you, friend Elasti-Girl." Starfire said with an affirmative nod.

Ignoring the alien princess for a slight moment, Elasti-Girl turned her gaze back towards Jinx. Before she could question why Starfire was there, Professor Dawn spoke first. "What's she doing here?"

Frowning and unwaveringly directing her eyes down to the nosy scientist, Elasti-Girl condemned her action. "Shouldn't you be trying to fix that transceiver?"

She merely shrugged in response before responding in a sad tone. "I can't do anything from here. If the hardware on the other side is sabotaged then it's broken and there's no way I can do anything unless I'm physically there. Sorry."

"Sorry won't save all those people!" Elasti-Girl nearly shouted as she leaned towards the regretful professor.

"But there's nothing more I can do!"

Once again, Elasti-Girl opened her mouth to retort but she was interrupted. This time it was a loud beeping coming from Starfire's person that sounded an awful lot like a cover of the James Bond theme. All eyes turned to face her.

Not quite noticing the looks that she was receiving from the 3 other ladies in the room, Starfire had already reached into one of her many invisible pockets to pull out a communicator. The communicator itself was easily identified by Jinx as being the same obsidian, circular device with an unsymmetrical crimson X shape adorning the front of it that she'd seen a few times previously. She'd used her own similarly designed communicator a once or twice in the past to talk to both Starfire and Red X.

Flicking the communicator open, Starfire greeted the face that only she could see. "Greetings, boyfriend. Have you accomplished your mission?" A small smile graced her features as she finished the sentence.

On the other end of the screen, Red X's skull shaped mask could be spotted with some sort of old and battered dock in the background with the sea sweeping roughly against it. The sky was dark thanks to the clouds that blocked most of the sunlight and gentle trickles of rain poured down as was evidenced when they hit the camera built into the communicator.

The sardonic antihero lifted a fair sized vial shaped container filled with a red substance into the picture and jokingly shook it about for a second. "The arming mechanism's design wasn't all too bright, not at all like you, Sunshine." He paused for a moment to look behind him and into the sky before adding something else. "And certainly not like this wonderful weather." Despite the modulator in his helmet effectively disguising his voice, the sarcastic tone in that last remark was very noticeable.

Not even remotely phased by the masked man's attempts at flattery and humor, Starfire pressed on. "And did you ensure that the bacteria were disposed of?"

"Yeah, beautiful. None of your precious, innocent fishermen will be dead anytime within the next week." He almost sound annoyed. Or amused. Jinx couldn't quite figure out which it was.

Elasti-Girl and the professor couldn't work out who it was from the voice alone but it was interesting to hear that Starfire did actually have a boyfriend of some description.

"I thank you, boyfriend Red X..."

_'Red X? I'm sure that name's familiar... Isn't he an enemy of the Titans?'_ Elasti-Girl pondered.

Jinx, on the other hand, was just glad that Starfire's English was improving, even if the improvements so far were only slightly noticeable. The more prominent matter on her mind at this time was Beast Boy. She was already experiencing some form of separation anxiety after not being by his side for so long. _'I shouldn't have just left him alone out there even if it's what he wanted me to do...'_ She was torn between staying and waiting impatiently or going out to check up on Beast Boy right then and there.

"... I shall join you at the predetermined location of meeting, posthaste." Starfire continued.

"See yah there, angel." With that said, the caped villain's picture went dark as he ended the call.

Starfire placed closed her own communicator and placed it back in its rightful place before turning to face everyone with a slight smile on her face. She immediately noticed that all eyes were on her. "Yes?"

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Making the whole bioweapon thing seem plausible was fun. I didn't want to roll with the boring bomb-go-boom idea that was used in the comics when the Doom Patrol sacrificed themselves to save Codsville.


	11. For Science!

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

_'Of course. He just had to fall asleep during the team debriefing. I can't really blame him since it's way past midnight.'_ Jinx amusingly thought. She was obviously referring to the one and only, Beast Boy, who had seemed so determined to dedicate his life to protecting Jinx as they took the jet back to the Doom Patrol HQ. At one point he started blabbering on about training harder, longer and even doing so every day because it was his job to protect her. He had a strange fire in his eyes that told Jinx he wasn't exactly lying about what he'd said.

He was so full of energy and dare she think it, passion, but when they arrived back home from the many hour long journey, Mento sat them all down in the conference room and started debriefing them... Only then did Beast Boy decide to silently clock out.

The only person who seemed to notice or even care was Jinx because he happened to be resting his head on her shoulder. The physical contact was nice, even if it was quite troublesome. Beast Boy was a lot heavier than he looked. _'Must be all of that muscle.'_ Jinx mused.

Many times throughout the debriefing, Jinx found herself nudging him into an upright position so he could rest without her support but his head always found its way back to her shoulder along with the remainder of his body weight. _'This is the last time I'm sitting next to him in a meeting like this.'_ She paused to weigh in the pros and cons of such a decision. _'Then again, sitting in his lap is the only acceptable alternative. Would Mento would be okay with that?'_

"Jinx." A familiar voice called out to the pink haired girl but she was apparently too lost in thought to notice.

_'He probably wouldn't. I wonder if he's going to get me the paperwork I need to marry...'_ She gently pushed Beast Boy comfortably back into his own seat. _'... Beast Hunk right there. What type of ID I would need anyway?'_ It was clear at this point that they hadn't even considered planning their wedding. The only thing they knew was that they were going to marry each other one way or another and they had all the time in the world to sort out the specifics.

"Jinx." The voice called out again.

She subconsciously reached her right hand over to her left in order to twist her engagement ring around on her finger as a way to further distract herself. To her dismay; the ring wasn't even there. She briefly panicked for a moment before remembering that she'd agreed with Beast Boy that wearing such precious jewellery whilst on duty wasn't a very good idea. If something were to happen to the ring he'd given her... She perished the thought.

_'Jinx Logan. Hmm, that doesn't sound right. How about Nicole Logan?'_ She sounded the names out in her head. _'That sounds better. But if my last name was Logan and I called him Logan, wouldn't that just be confus-'_

"JINX!" Once more, the same voice called out with the exception that it was much louder this time. The sudden outburst didn't seem to phase Beast Boy's sleeping form in the least.

Jinx's eyes lost the glazed look that had captured them and she focused on the person calling her name. "Yes?"

"I know you've been around my son for a while now but I'd appreciate it if you avoided picking up any of his other bad habits. Day dreaming during a debriefing is reproachable behavior." Mento sternly reprimanded her like a child.

She didn't bother pointing out that Beast Boy was quite obviously sleeping right next to her. "Oh - I'm sorry." She brought a hand up to her chest in a mock heartfelt gesture.

Not quite liking her attitude, Mento demonstrated just how irascible he was by scowling at her. "Why was Starfire there to assist us?"

She returned the favor with a sarcastic quip. "Because Beast Boy and I are her friends?"

Gritting his teeth and bearing the irritating teenager's behavior, the telepath clarified his previous question. "You know what I meant. What were the circumstances of her arrival at General Zahl's hideout?"

* * *

_After regrouping and gathering what ever data they could, the team had already walked out of the underground lair with General Zahl in their custody. They'd agreed that Beast Boy would take Elasti-Girl back to the jet with one of his aerial forms and they'd fly it back to hover over their location and then open the cargo ramp so Starfire could bring everybody safely inside._

_As expected; Jinx secured herself in the seat right next to Beast Boy who had been eagerly awaiting her arrival. On the other end of the jet, Negative Man sat himself near Robot Man who was strapped securely in place with the straps that would normally be used to hold large containers. Zahl was still out cold by the time they secured him in the jet but they injected the villain with a strong sedative just to be on the safe side. Hopefully it would last until they could hand him over to the appropriate authorities.  
_

_Starfire took a seat directly in front of the young couple of the day. She decided to join them on the way back so she could catch up with her friends and also because it took her in the general direction of where she was supposed to meet Red X. Under normal circumstances she'd have sped off on her own and made it to her destination in record time thanks to her flight capabilities but these weren't normal circumstances. These were rather, as she'd aptly label them, "glorious" circumstances.  
_

_"Oh friends! It is most agreeable to be able to converse with you at last!" Starfire exclaimed as the jet sped up, off and away from the island._

_Chuckling, Beast Boy cracked a joke. "Jeez, Star. Are you going to start telling us to live long and prosper as well?"_

_"I do not understand. Would you not welcome my wishes for your well-being?"_

_Jinx elbowed Beast Boy in the ribs for his poor attempt at humor. "I'd find it agreeable if you'd stop making Star Trek references, that is, only if you do want to end up living long and prosper." She promptly returned her hand to rest on top of Beast Boy's right hand which he had used to intimately grasp Jinx's upper thigh. It seemed that he was still greatly worried about losing her.  
_

_He brought his free hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Ahh yeah... Sorry, Star. I was just trying to be funny."_

_"It is alright, friend."_

_Decidedly advancing the conversation, Jinx asked the question they were both dying to broach. "I don't mean to sound unappreciative, but why did you come here, Star?"  
_

_Starfire took a few seconds to consider her answer. "Do you recall one of our previous conversations where I mentioned being assaulted by a number of Slade bots?"_

_"You said that you dealt with them and got away. Why?"_

_"They did not do the stopping even after we escaped. They found us many times more - each time they were upgraded and harder to combat."_

_"Did X end up finding any proof that Slade was the one who sent them?" Beast Boy questioned. Slade was supposed to be dead so it was only reasonable for them to try and figure out who was responsible._

_"Boyfriend Red X has been unable to locate the person who had sent them. He told me that he had similar difficulty in the past when trying to track Slade's activities whilst he was still alive."_

_Attempting to be at least a little compassionate, Jinx spoke softly. "That sounds rough, Star. Is that why you're looking a little tired?"  
_

_"No." She tersely stated._

_"No?" Jinx sought clarification._

_"Slade bots were not the only enemies we encountered." Starfire sounded a little hesitant to reveal specific details._

___Beast Boy made sure to approach the topic carefully after seeing Starfire look downcast._ "Do we even want to know who else you fought?"  


_She shook her head in response. "You do not. In fact, all of the fighting had caused boyfriend Red X's supply of Xenothium to dwindle down to almost nothing. He discovered that someone was moving large amounts of it so he thought it would be an 'easy steal' as he would say."  
_

_Piecing it all together, the pink haired girl solved the little puzzle. "Let me guess: that someone was General Zahl?"_

_"Yes. That is what lead me to you."  
_

_"Why didn't you tell us about what you'd found? We haven't even been able to contact you with that cool communicator thingy you gave us."_

_"Boyfriend Red X informed me that we were to maintain the 'radio silence' because he suspected that someone was tracking our signal when ever we activated the communicators. I am most sorry, friends. I have greatly done the missing of both of you."_

_"It would be nice to talk to you a lot more. Do you think he's going to lift the radio silence any time soon?"_

_"He's working on a way to make our signal impossible to intercept and trace. Once he succeeds I will gladly inform you of it."_

_It didn't take long after that for Beast Boy and Jinx to start discussing their own lives with the redhead. Starfire almost ripped the safety belts out of their sockets when she tried to jump for joy after hearing that the young couple across from her were engaged. The conversation quickly took a strange turn when Starfire started asking about their mating experiences thus far. With Beast Boy too embarrassed to even discuss the topic, Jinx was left with the duty of telling Starfire that it wasn't proper to question others about their sexual lives just out of the blue like that on Earth.  
_

_Starfire was quick to schedule a girls night with the unlucky girl - it was to be had at the soonest convenience of both parties._

* * *

Jinx made sure to include unnecessary details throughout her recounting of the whole ordeal, such as detailed descriptions of the warm fluttery feelings she received when ever she shared eye contact with Beast Boy and she also began recalling the friendly catch up conversation that they all shared after figuring out how Starfire found them just in time to save Beast Boy.

Mento knew that she was trying to antagonize him but he quickly cut her off when he concluded that there was nothing more she could tell him. Acknowledging the fact that without Jinx's and Beast Boy's assistance, the Doom Patrol would have failed (he gave a small amount of credit where a lot more credit was due), he announced that the debriefing was over.

Jinx was having a little trouble waking Beast Boy so when the others weren't looking as they stood up, she leaned over and planted a prolonged kiss upon his unknowing lips. Shockingly coming back to the world of the living, he momentarily went wide eyed before returning the kiss with as much intensity as he could muster on such short notice. The two parted with grins on their faces before Mento began ushering everyone out.

Naturally, the chromatically differed duo were the first to exit as they sped off, undoubtedly, to their room to retire for the night. Negative Man commented on this. "Bah! They were getting all cutesy wutesy again."

"You're tellin' me. The way she always sits in his lap when ever it's possible is disgusting." Robot Man commented with a hint of disdain.

Their mock disgust towards her son's relationship caused Elasti-Girl to smile. "You two shouldn't mock young love."

"I don't like her attitude." The Doom Patrol leader blurted out with no apparent room for adjustment in his current view.

His wife placed a hand on his shoulder before speaking. "Steve, you should be happy that she's finally starting to act like a normal person around you instead of a little clay soldier. It means that she's settling in and getting used to everyone."

Mento merely groaned in response before moving ahead of everyone else and quickly evacuating the room.

Robot Man called out from his seat as the last two Doom Patrollers shared a hearty laugh and began walking out of the room without him. "Guys! Mento still needs to fix me."

The lights flicked off and shortly afterwards the door slammed shut.

"Guys?"

* * *

Beast Boy could hardly keep his hands off his fiancé as they made their way to their room which Jinx happily commented on after breaking away from another fiery kiss with her green boyfriend. "You're a little hands on today."

"You started it." He pointedly stated.

"I did nothing of the sort." She teased.

As cliché as it sounds; the bright grin on his face made her heart flutter. "Don't play games, beautiful."

"Call me that again and..." Her breath hitched as he aggressively pushed her against a wall and began planting soft kisses along her neckline. She tilted her head slightly to give him better access. "... There will be consequences."

"What kind of consequences?" He daringly questioned.

Leaning her head forward just enough so that her warm breath could hit his ear, she warned him. "The best kind."

"Well, it's not my fault that you're so strikingly beautiful."

She muttered something about him using big words before she turned the tables by maneuvering out of his grasp and shoving him against the wall this time so that she could switch the positions around. Securing her position by wrapping one of her legs around him, it was now her turn to start planting kisses along his own neckline.

"Jinx..." He huffed out in annoyance.

This of course prompted her to smile she began teasing him further. "What? You prefer to be on top and in control?"

A strong wave of possessiveness swept throughout him as something inside of him roared in affirmation. He brought his left hand up to his brand on her neck only to gently trace around it with one of his sharpened nails. "Yes."

"I think I can accommodate for that." She sultrily said as she broke away and reached up to grip his hand with her own before tugging him towards their destination.

The pale skinned heroine wasted no time in groping his manliest of body parts through his uniform as soon as they'd entered the secluded confines of their room. Only by a hair's width did the unsuspecting teenager resist the urge to jump in surprise. "And you said I was the hands on one."

"I like to appraise the merchandise before I do something with it." Jinx naughtily said with a devilish smirk on her face and a teasing glint in her eyes.

If it weren't for the implications of the double entendre, Beast Boy would have more than likely grinned, but he wasn't yet completely consumed by lust which is why he was able to question her intentions. "What exactly do you plan to do with 'it'?"

The poor girl's smirk was wiped off her face as she broke away from Beast Boy and paused for a moment while looking him in the eye. Sighing, she turned around and trudged on over to their bed to take a seat.

Finally moving his own two feet, he walked over and sat next to her. "This is as hard for you as it is for me." He said in as compassionate voice as he could muster.

"It doesn't seem like it." She childishly retorted without turning to face him. She had this underlying doubt that maybe she just wasn't good enough for him.

"You know that I want you too... Especially right now since you're ovulating, but I don't want to do 'it' until we're married."

With a bewildered look, she turn her head to see if he was serious. "How on the hell do you know that I'm... Oh." She recalled a talk that she had with him back when they were still Titans. _'His ears hear all, his eyes show no lies and his nose knows... That damn nose of his.'_

"Trust me, Jinx. That turns me on more than anything but it would make me a lot happier if we were married before we went that far. I was just raised that way."

"Okay..." She tried not to sound so upset about being rejected but it was difficult. If she wasn't so upset then she may have even connected the dots about why her ovulation turned him on so much.

"Plus, I don't really want our first time to be in my parents house." He joked in an effort to cheer her up.

She couldn't stop a smile from creeping onto her face after hearing his little wisecrack.

In a nervous manner, he brought up something else that might cheer her up. "Y'know... There are lots of other things we can do."

"Things?" She questioned, getting a little more interested in where the conversation was going.

"Well... I mean... I've been sorta wondering..." He couldn't quite say what he wanted to. To his fiancée, he even seemed a little shy.

A deadly serious look crossed her face. "Yes?"

Now that the heated passion in his veins had long since died down, saying the words was almost pure torture for the green teen. "I wonder what you taste like."

"What I taste like?" It took her a moment to figure out what he meant. After a sudden moment of clarity, she wasted no time in removing her panties as soon as possible in order to indulge his curiosity; purely in the name of science, of course.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** For (minimal) comedic value: I opted to ignore the fact that the team must've dragged Robot Man into the jet, taken him back home and sat him in the chair without remembering that they'd left him in an immobile state. I guess this is a longer chapter to say sorry for not posting updates as much as I used to?


	12. Somberness

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

A dark and foreboding mist enveloped Jump City which wasn't typically something you'd expect this time of year. Passerby's near the shoreline of the city itself could just barely make out the outline of the infamous Titans Tower. Spotting the Teen Titans themselves was even more difficult than spotting their tower as there hadn't been a single public sighting of any of the Teen Titans in the city for over two and a half months apart from Robin who was still taking up temporary residence in the Jump City General Hospital and Cyborg who had released a brief press statement to inform everyone that Robin was recovering from an encounter with a super villain and that for the foreseeable future, Beast Boy would be on a special assignment. Jinx's addition to the team hadn't been publicly announced so there was no need to bring her up at all.

Crime had been at an all time low for a while now so Cyborg didn't have to worry too much about defending Jump City. After all - it's not like he could do much with just a one man team; Starfire had disappeared, Raven was locked in her room 24/7 and Robin was recovering from the crushing that a certain green ex-Titan gave him.

Even as he briskly walked towards Raven's room for seemingly the thousandth time, Cyborg had no idea what was going on anymore. He'd yet to figure out why Robin and Raven were attacked by Beast Boy and Jinx or even why Raven had refused to heal their leader after he was mortally injured. Raven wasn't talking at all and the only coherent sentences he could gather from his brief but discrete visits with Robin had been the numerous ways that the boy wonder planned to mangle Beast Boy.

Arriving at his destination, Cyborg gently knocked on Raven's door. "Raven? You wanna come out now? You must be hungry, girl, and I've got what you ne-" Without bothering to finish his sentence, he both surprisingly and suddenly gave up the facade as he groaned in frustration. Sometimes he didn't even know why he bothered anymore.

He'd been doing the same thing over and over again for nearly three months. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is, after all, the definition of insanity, right?

Pulling up his arm to examine a scanner built into it, he checked to confirm that Raven was in the room. "I know you're in there. Please, just come out and talk to me. I miss them both as much as you do."

He raised his cybernetic arm once again in preparation for knocking a little louder against the door. Before his hand could make contact with the metallic surface, an obsidian aura engulfed the door to warn him that there would be consequences if he disturbed her again.

Seeing that there was nothing more he could do, he sighed before turning away and walking back down to the garage to work on his "baby".

* * *

Meditating was impossible for the violet haired Azarathian, however, shedding dry tears was quite the opposite for her. You see, Raven had ran out of tears long ago.

The "you don't know what you have until it's gone" saying had never applied more to Raven's life than it did now. Beast Boy had unknowingly been her best friend through thick and thin for the longest time and he would've been something more if she hadn't ruined their relationship by abusing and disregarding him time after time. She'd convinced herself that at this point she would grovel on her hands and knees at his feet if it meant even having a chance at reconciling even in the slightest with the changeling.

As a result of the events related to Beast Boy's departure, she locked herself in her room and attempted to suppress her emotions; in particular, those that huddled together under the banner of her timid side. Too much of one emotion was bad, and too much of many emotions was incredibly destructive. She was just lucky that her room still had four walls, a ceiling and a floor.

But she didn't feel lucky.

The unlucky girl felt like she was just an unworthy, halfbreed demon. The unworthy demon felt like she had utterly betrayed her closest friend. The betrayer felt like life wasn't even worth living anymore.

The hollow heroine felt more hopeless right now than she did when she was forced to summon Trigon to her dimension. At least back then she had friends. Now... Now she had nothing. She had no one.

... Or so she told herself.

Vaguely recalling that Cyborg had dropped by minutes earlier, she felt a rather overriding urge to visit Beast Boy's room. Showering for the first time in a while, Raven slipped on her signature leotard but felt too drained at the time to bother putting her concealing cloak on. She noiselessly exited her own domain and took slow, deliberate padded footsteps towards HIS room.

In no time at all, she found herself knocking upon his door almost out of habit. Deep in the recesses of her mind she clearly held some small sliver of hope that he might even come back. Realizing the foolishness of her action, she proceeded to check if the door was locked. It wasn't. The door slid open to reveal Beast Boy's entirely untouched room.

A thin layer of dust had accumulated over all of his possessions during his permanent absence. She was reluctant to go inside as she knew that he wouldn't appreciate it but something pulled her very being inside of the messy room. The door automatically slid shut behind her. To her eyes, the entire place was unbelievably disorganized - it was a complete demonstration of Beast Boy's lack of decency. How he had lived like that would forever remain a mystery to the emotionally stunted girl. At least it didn't all smell of rotting pizza like she half expected it to.

It was remarkable to her that even after all this time, she could still feel his presence in this very room... Oddly enough; she found it comforting. After walking around for a small while, she came across a thin body mirror that was hung up on the wall near his bunk bed. Her own murky image could be made out from it despite the dust that had gathered on its smooth reflective surface. The pale girl took a moment to analyze her own features as she stood stock still.

Her free flowing silky hair had definitely grown a fair amount as was evident by the fact that it now rested on her shoulders. Her luminescent violet orbs were dull and seemingly without life as she failed to take any particular interest in her own figure. All she could notice were the 4 scars that Beast Boy had given her when she failed to violate his mind. They weren't as disfiguring as one might expect. She refused treatment and let them heal naturally so that now only four thin lines of paler than usual flesh could be seen along one side of her face.

They didn't extend much beyond one inch above or below her left eye with only one of them actually being in line with her eye itself - she was once again lucky in the fact that the eye itself wasn't hit. The unnatural impurities upon her skin served as a permanent reminder that she'd failed in her duties as a friend. She knew full well that she deserved it and a whole lot more.

Feeling tears well in her eyes as her thready emotional control began slipping, she turned away and focused her sight on his desk that had one sole object laid upon it. It was a book of some description. In the exact same thoughts as Jinx oh-so-long ago, Raven slowly walked over and picked up the apparent journal with great delicacy and interest before inspecting it. _'What's this?'_

Warily opening it to the first page, she only read about half of said page before slamming the book shut. She refused to violate his privacy anymore than necessary and it was a little obvious that he'd left the book behind purely because he'd forgotten about it. No doubt, she suspected that he'd written about his experiences with her in that book in great detail and she didn't have the heart to read something like that again after reading through something similar in her own mind once before.

Not putting the book down, the heroine walked over to his bottom bunk and sat down. _'I'll... I'll look after this until he...'_ She couldn't restrain the sudden urge to sob quietly as she choked up a little bit. _'Until he comes back...'_ She didn't bother noting down the fact that her powers had failed to break anything in his room.

Feeling much more tired than before, she laid down upon the bed and rested her head on the single large pillow that he must've used many times before. She found great relief in the action as she drifted away to a surprisingly calm sleep with his journal clutched firmly against her chest with both arms.

* * *

Elsewhere in Jump City, a certain clipped bird was discussing a rather controversial topic with its mentor. It wasn't going well.

"Robin - DO NOT ask me again and DO NOT go to anyone else in the League about it. You've asked 3 times and the answer is still no." His mentor spoke solemnly.

"But he tried to kill us!" Robin was practically seething in his hospital bed. His grip on his communicator was like that of a vice.

The caped crusader gave the boy wonder a cold look that, in the Bat Clan, loosely translated to a look of incredulity before he wordlessly ended the call.

_'Fine! If the League won't help me then I'll do it myself!'_ He made to get out of his bed but the sudden ache from moving his chest upwards so rapidly made him yelp in pain, causing him to fall softly back onto the uncomfortable and equally cheap mattress. Robin groaned loudly in frustration before he repeatedly hit the bed's guard rails with his hands until two nurses came in to deal with him.

* * *

It was a few hours later when Cyborg approached Raven's door once more. He was feeling even guiltier than he already was since he just gave up on her like that. You don't just give up when it comes to your friends... Or family. That's exactly what he did with Beast Boy and he wasn't about to make the same mistake twice. "Raven, you in there?"

He didn't wait long before trying again. "Raven - I'm coming in there if you don't answer me. I don't care if you send me to a dimension filled with tofu." It was a good thing that he was much too focused on the task at hand or else he'd stop to consider the effect that living in a tofu filled dimension would have on him. He'd more than likely starve to death in such an event.

He waited a few more seconds only to hear no response. When he went to open the door, he found that it was, oddly enough, unlocked. Peaking his head in through the doorway, the tin bucket called out. "Anyone home?"

_'I guess she wouldn't mind if I looked around for her. Maybe in the process I could figure out what the heck she's been doin' in here for three months.'_ Cyborg curiously pondered. He opened up his scanner and checked her location. _'What's she doin' in B's room? If she comes back while I'm in here I'll just tell her the truth: that I was lookin' for her. Yeah. That'll work.'_ And with great care, he edged himself slowly into her room and examined his surroundings.

Haunting statuettes, oddly shaped lanterns, spooky dark walls, violet furnishings. This was definitely Raven's room. The only off thing about it all apart from the entirety of the creepy room itself was the fact that it was nearly torn in two. Her desk was split in half straight down its center, leaving both halves collapsed inwards on the ground. Her corner shelves built just under an arch in the corner of her room were either broken in much the same way as the desk or they were nearly devoid of all books as was evident by fact that the vast majority of the paged troves of knowledge were riddled upon the ground in tiny shreds of ruined paper.

A cold breeze gently flowed past her closed thick silk curtains which prompted Cyborg to go and close the window. Moving the curtains aside, he discovered that the window's glass was gone as in it was nowhere to be found. He huffed in annoyance before turning back around and examining what ever else there was to examine such as the large cracked body mirror that wasn't actually hanging on the wall anymore - it was leaning against it.

The scary statuettes that used to lay on various shelves and pedestals were splintered into various pieces that laid scattered across the floor, causing them to look even more deformed than they were previously. The final thing he noticed was that her bed's headboard was greatly fractured but apart from that, her bed appeared to be in a usable condition.

As the lumbering half robot proceeded to turn around, a small reflection from her bed was caught in the corner of his eye which prompted him to turn himself back around to identify it.

There, laying on her bed, was an ominous looking hand mirror. It was inexcusable of him to miss it the first time around. _'Is that Raven's meditation mirror?'_ He found himself drawn to it despite past experiences with its dimension shifting abilities.

Before he decided to reach out and grab it almost out of reflex, an idea came to mind. _'Wait... She's all upset because B's gone, but if he were to come back and forgive her... I'm gonna need this.'_ And as expected, he reached out to grab it.

Fortunately enough for him, he seemed to recall what had happened the last time Beast Boy had grabbed it so he made use of his common sense and paused in his tracks before moving over and grabbing one of Raven's pillow. He figured that if he was "borrowing" her mirror then she wouldn't mind a missing pillow case. He snatched the mirror up with the pillow case and securely wrapped it inside before trudging straight back out of the room so that he could start a full scale search for the missing changeling.

Cyborg didn't know if it was a good idea to track down Beast Boy or not since he and Jinx obviously didn't want to be found but Raven's psychological condition was on the line here and he'd be damned if he let her go without a fight.

Besides; he had a good idea where his old pal might be.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I originally didn't plan on writing this chapter but I decided to mix things up a little and please some of you who have been waiting for an update on the Titans.


	13. Celebration

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not hold any rights to any Time Warner franchises or to those of its subsidiaries.

* * *

All morning. She'd been doing it all morning while they laid in bed snuggling together. Her gratuitous behavior was bound to get a verbal reaction from him sooner or later. "Jinx, c'mon. You do this nearly every morning. Can't I get a day off on my own birthday?"

"I can't give my boyfriend his birthday present?" She girlishly whined as she reluctantly ceased grinding her rear against his groin.

"If that present involves me and you doing the nasty then no."

In response, the pink haired minx turned around to face her fiancé, resting her hands on his muscled chest as she did so. "No birthday sex?" She facetiously questioned.

"No birthday sex." Beast Boy stated authoritatively as he adjusted his position for her and traced gentle lines up and down her back with one of his exceedingly sharp nails.

"But you're a man now." The pout on her face was almost too much for him to bear.

"I'm only 17, Jinx." He said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well... You're man enough for me."

He tried to maintain a look of indifference as he responded in earnest. "Say what ever you want but we're not doing 'it' until you're my wife."

"Why? You know I'll always be with you." She contended.

"That's not something you can guarantee." He argued in return.

Adopting a somewhat more serious tone, Jinx replied. "And a piece of paper is somehow going to do that for me?"

Sighing as he inwardly conceded to her line of reasoning, he playfully taunted her. "Why am I engaged to a pervert?"

"Why am I engaged to someone who's determined to stay a virgin forever?" She quipped right back at her lover.

Almost but not quite lamenting the fact that she just called him chaste, Beast Boy roughly pushed Jinx onto her back and straddled her as he held her arms against the bed on either side of her head. "Is that what you think?"

Despite the fact she was aroused from the sudden change of pace, with a slight giggle she found the strength to tease him. "I love it when you man handle me like this."

Groaning and releasing his grip on her, he slipped out of the bed and stood up before changing the subject completely. "Welp, I believe there's a surprise party you planned for me that I should be heading off to right about now."

Thrown off track by the sudden alteration of topic, Jinx huffed out her next sentence in a devilishly snarky tone. "How do YOU know about that?"

"Because I'm engaged to you."

Not determined to get out of bed just yet, Jinx just stared him down. "Come on, really. Did Mento tell you about it just to spite me?"

The green teen pulled out a towel and slipped on his robe before heading towards the door. "Shower together, yay or nay?"

Now he was starting to annoy her. "You can't keep changing the-"

"Nay it is then. See you in thirty." Without further adieu, he hastily opened the door and proceeded to the men's showers.

"WAIT!" She desperately shouted after processing what he'd just done.

Stumbling out of the bed and onto her own two pale feet, she unfortunately lost her balance and fell almost face first onto the ground with a huff.

"Damnit, Logan!" She clamored as she brought herself back up. In no time at all she had collected her own towel and robe and proceeded to chase after him.

* * *

They'd been secretly showering semi-regularly together in the men's showers for a while now and they'd yet to be caught red handed which they were both grateful for since Mento would no doubt have a thing or two to say about it but they found that the risk was... Enticing.

Admiring his partners body as she turned away briefly, he noticed something out of place on her beautifully pale skin. "Jinx? What the hell is that?"

Turning back around to face him, she responded in a bewildered tone. "What's what?"

"The green paw print on your ass!" He damn near vociferated.

Raising her brows and shaping her mouth in an "o" shape to indicate her sudden remembrance, she turned around and gave him a better view by bending over slightly, she used a hand to support herself against the shower stall's wall. "You don't like your birthday present?"

It wasn't a large tattoo but it was certainly noticeable when she was in a nude state such as this. It was just a small, green paw print, tilted slightly to the right on her lower back above the right end of her derrière. The overall shape of the tattoo itself wasn't as round as it was sharp, if not elongated and as far as he could tell, it was approximately an inch and a half in length and possibly an inch in width. The claws happened to be a very nice touch as they gave it a more animalistic appearance.

Speechless for the most part, Beast Boy could only ask one thing. "Why?"

Straightening back up and turning around, she tilted her head upwards, as was necessary thanks to the recent discovery that he was now taller than her, and leaned in towards him to express her affection for him through brief lip contact as warm water sprayed down upon their shoulders.

After pulling away, she answered him. "I already have this," she pointed at his brand on her neck, "so I figured: 'why not go a little further?'"

Muttering an obscenity under his breath, he pulled her back in for another kiss and this time it was a lot longer and lot more intense than the last one. She concurrently came to the conclusion that he liked it.

* * *

"Righhht." Beast Boy's tone was mildly sarcastic as he responded to what ever Jinx had said previously in the idle conversation they were making as they headed off to the "surprise" party.

She stopped tugging him forward by the hand and turned around to face him. "Have I ever lied to you?"

_'A stupid question gets a stupid answer.'_ Beast Boy jokingly thought. Of course she'd technically lied to him before. "Well there was that one time when you and Larry-"

She immediately began tugging him away again before he could finish his sentence. "That was just a misunderstanding."

Chuckling briefly, he continued. "A misunderstanding? You two-"

"Oh look! We're here!" She hurriedly said.

And true to her word; they were right in front of the closed doors to the dining room. Without prompting, the doors slid open to reveal a room bathed in darkness.

Beast Boy could only conclude one thing: whilst planning the party, Jinx had sorely underestimated not only his sense of smell but also his eyesight.

Whereas most regular humans would find it impossible to make out any figures in the near abyssal blackness that engulfed the room - Beast Boy could quite clearly identify shapes and dark shades of colors. As if that wasn't enough to confirm that everyone else was in the room, their respective scents came on a lot stronger now that the door was open.

Gently and cautiously being ushered a few steps into the room by his pink haired belle, there were a few seconds of quiet where only the steady breathing of Jinx and everyone else reigned through to his sensitive ears before the lights flicked on.

The sudden change in lighting blinded the green teen as his eyes struggled to quickly adjust. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" The voices of Elasti-Girl and Negative Man rang out.

Beast Boy regained his sight just in time to watch a disgruntled and seated Robot Man wearing a traditional dotted and cone shaped party hat blow into a tiny blue party horn. The resulting high pitched sound was almost pathetically cute.

Eventually he greeted all of his family members before thanking them for what they'd done... Or at least, almost everyone.

Recalling that Mento had yet to say anything thus far, he looked around the fairly large sized room only to spot Mento sitting rather grumpily (as judged by the seemingly permanent frown etched upon his face) at the far end of the dining table away from everyone else. The unmasked Doom Patrol leader was distracted thanks to the numerous reports he now had laid out in front of him so Beast Boy decided it was best to stay out of his way for now since it was clear that Mento thought throwing a birthday party was a waste of precious crime stopping time and that he didn't want to be there any longer than he was required to.

With the greetings being somewhat out of the way, the changeling took the time to properly evaluate his surroundings. All kinds of food, mostly vegetarian friendly, were laid out in a buffet style setup on the large dining table alongside the small stack of wrapped presents rested neatly in the center. A moderately sized birthday banner reading: "Happy 17th, BB!" in green text hung from the high ceiling right above the dining table where it faced the door so it was easy for all to see.

A few groups of green balloons were appropriately placed in the corners of the room so that they were out of the way but at the same time they were easily visible so that they could help spruce up the atmosphere a little.

"This is great guys, really." Beast Boy commented with a bright gleam in his eye as he spotted a pumpkin pie with his name on it. It quite literally had "BB" inscribed on it with whipped cream which was a nice touch. He hadn't had a real birthday party for a LONG time and this was definitely a special moment for him which Jinx more than likely knew.

"Good. I've been planning it for the four months that we've been here." Jinx offhandedly commented in an overtly nonchalant manner as if to say that he'd better appreciate everything she'd done.

"Did you do all of this by yourself? I didn't even know you could cook like this." The undertone of awe in his voice was hard to miss.

"She had more than a little help from me." Elasti-Girl interrupted. "Teaching a young lady with no patience how to prepare half decent vegetarian meals is a very difficult thing to do. Only an experienced chef such as myself could pull it off... I just haven't been able to do it yet." She teased.

Sheepishly rubbing her neck, the unlucky girl answered her boyfriend. "I sorta just made the pumpkin pie since it's your favorite, but hey - it's genuine and homemade."

Negative Man childishly threw his own two cents in. "Don't forget me. I helped with the decoration."

"You picked out the tablecloth." Jinx said in an unimpressed voice.

"But it's a green tablecloth!" The radioactive fellow argued.

Beast Boy jokingly defended his uncle figure as he pulled out a seat across from him. "Larry has a point. Green is where it's at."

Seeing that Beast Boy was sitting down in the wrong seat, Robot Man called out to warn him in his usual gruff voice. "Hey, Plant Head."

Just as he finished sitting down as well. "What's up?"

"Go and plant your backside over there." He pointed towards Rita's usual seat.

Beast Boy turned to face Elasti-Girl who confirmed what the robotic man had said. "Yes, dear. It's your birthday so you get the end of the table."

"Assigned seating. Dude, I must be the luckiest guy in the world." He said as he trudged over to his seat. Now he'd have to deal with looking at Mento who sat at the head of the table.

Less out of wanting to act gentlemanly and more out of a desire for respite to delay the inevitable, he pulled the closest chair out near his own and signaled for Jinx to take a seat.

Finally joining the rest of his family at the table, Beast Boy was relieved to see that the small stack of unopened presents in the center of the table was just big enough to obscure Mento entirely. _'Whew. He'd do that freaky leader stare thing the entire time if we could see each other.'_

It's true that Mento had been acting exceedingly strangely as of late. Beast Boy and Jinx had been sent on numerous patrols around the city together which was peculiar because you'd figure that Mento would avoid such a thing and every now and then they'd catch their leader staring one of them down if they were in the same room together. It was creepy.

* * *

The feast had ended and the time had come to viciously tear apart his stack of presents. The anticipation was killing him... Well... Not exactly, but it was close enough.

Out of desire to avoid being predictable by opening the biggest present first, the birthday boy reached for the smallest one instead which happened to be Negative Man's. It was a rectangular, palm sized green box with the removable top only being secured by a small ribbon wrapped around the box itself. Quickly dispatching with the troublesome ribbon, removing the lid and then unwrapping his gift from its miniscule amount of bubble wrap packaging, the changeling quickly figured out what he'd received.

He examined the two rectangular steel break fluid reservoir cover plates in depth. Both had an identical design of a vicious wolf's face carved into them which he immediately recognized as being a part of the Wolf School's medallion in the popular Witcher games series.

Beast Boy thought that it was actually pretty cool. He'd swap his boring factory standard reservoir covers on the Beast with his new ones as soon as possible. He hadn't given much love to his number one motorcycle recently and figured that it was about time he took his mechanical companion out for a spin. With Jinx. On a date.

"I thought you'd appreciate those beauties. You've apparently outgrown video games so I figured the latest version of Monkey Racers or what ever wouldn't cut it this time." Negative Man commented as Beast Boy traced his thumb over the design of one of the plates.

Beast Boy graced his teammate with a brief smile before giving thanks. "I guess you're right. Thanks, Larry. These are pretty swaggin'."

The pattern repeated itself for the next few presents. He'd rend their packaging asunder and thank whoever had given the gift to him, and yes, he did receive a pack of socks as everyone does on special occasions such as this. He was so distracted throughout the whole ordeal that he didn't notice Mento had discarded his numerable reports and was now watching him intently.

God only knows what Mento had planned for the poor boy.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I've rounded off the word count for my other two stories of this little trilogy and created my own covers for all three. I actually rewrote this chapter (practically) from the ground up because I wasn't happy with it - I hope you slave drivers are happy. I strive to improve and if I don't do so then... Yeah.


End file.
